


Other Vengeance chapter three: Ill Feelings

by WaywardInsecticon



Series: Other Vengeance [4]
Category: Transformers: Beast Wars
Genre: Animal Death, Faction Truce, Gen, Transformers as Humans, bodily functions exist, illness is messy, we handed out sexes by beast-mode in this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-05
Updated: 2018-07-05
Packaged: 2019-06-05 16:11:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15174458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WaywardInsecticon/pseuds/WaywardInsecticon
Summary: Three days after the change. The Predacons' evil plan ... is to be helpful.  Megatron retrieves the alien disc and confronts Dinobot about the reasons why he left the Predacons.  Meanwhile, Quickstrike and Silverbolt get sick, and one of the alien sites shows activity.





	1. Chapter 1

_Four days,_ Optimus thought again and it still surprised him. Four days of strange bodies and Predacon houseguests. Sometimes it felt like it had always been like this; that it was perfectly normal to, for example, encounter an organic primate male in the materials lab who was also Scorponok. At other times they were reminded quite drastically that the situation was strange and new, such as the business about the need for a lavatory three days ago. The primary waste product of the Cybertronian metabolism was heat, sometimes gas in extreme cases. _Well, hopefully that was the last of the big surprises ..._

Sleep happened, rather more of it than he was used to, and it left him feeling inefficient. It was also harder to return to full consciousness than it used to be and Optimus rubbed at his eyes as he walked up to the command centre on heavy feet. They'd come up with a schedule. Shorter shifts than before to compensate for weaker bodies but it was the closest thing to normal that the Maximals had.

The Predacons didn't follow it. They didn't seem to have a schedule at all. Oddly, there was a pattern - where the Maximals thought it most sensible to go to bed at sunset and wake up early, the Predacons tended to stay up at night and wake up at sunrise. Since the equatorial night was twelve hours long and they were stuck inside during the dark hours, this gave each faction four hours more or less alone on the _Axalon_.

Optimus had hoped to catch Airazor before she got off shift but he'd woken up too late and Rattrap had already taken over monitor duty. Within the last few minutes, since he was still running through the preliminary checks. "Morning, Rattrap."

"Hey, boss." Rattrap didn't turn, still fiddling with the monitors.

Then Optimus noticed what Rattrap was actually watching. "Why are you checking the cameras in here?"

"Just makin' sure the Preds were behavin' overnight."

The first shift of the night, where the Predacons were still awake after the Maximals had gone to sleep, had immediately been dubbed the Predacon Megacycle. Just as quickly, Dinobot had staked his claim on it, declaring that he was the one most able to determine between suspicious and perfectly innocent activity in the Predacons. "I'm sure there was no trouble."

"I don't trust the Preds to leave him alone. And I don't trust that he won't listen to 'em."

"If you're so worried about it, trade shifts."

Rattrap made a derisive noise. "Think I didn't try? He chased me off."

Skimming through the security footage showed Dinobot perfectly alone for four hours. He seemed bored but attentive - he was disciplined enough not to call up a computer game or doze off. "You worry even more than I do," said Optimus.

"Enh, Megs only left him alone 'cause he knows we have cameras in here," said Rattrap. Dismissing the topic, he glanced at the corridor. "The neophytes are late. Silverbolt's usually on time and Quickstrike's always in here before everybody. I'd swear he doesn't actually sleep except I've seen him do it."

Rattrap got back to what he was supposed to be doing, checking weather reports and scanning for stasis pods. Optimus rather liked to watch him work - there was an efficiency in him that Optimus hadn't expected when Rattrap first joined the crew. He didn't rush through his tasks, there just wasn't any wasted movement.

After a few minutes, Optimus left to get breakfast and to check on the rest of his crew, at least the ones who were awake. Becoming organic was an unforeseeable occurrence and his crew had accepted the challenge. Most of them were upset about the change but it didn't stop them from accepting, adapting, and doing their jobs as best they could given new limitations. _I expected no different and no less from them. They're good people._

 

**Other Vengeance 2.0  
** Ill Feelings  
( part one )  
 

"This is Cybertropolis. This doin' anything for you, 'Strike?"

"No."

"Nuts. 'Cause I figure you must be from the Iacon area. You kinda got the accent ..."

There was never an expedition that had as many problems with stasis pods as the _Axalon_ mission did, Optimus thought. Granted, a space battle with a pack of Predacon outlaws and subsequent crash landing on a planet with too much raw energon weren't exactly usual circumstances. The result was that everyone who had come out of a stasis pod had amnesia to some degree.

Which in the current situation had very strange consequences. Quickstrike and Silverbolt had no memories of Maximals, of Cybertron, or of metal. As far as they were concerned, they had always been organic beings.

They were with Rattrap now, who was combining monitor duty with showing them a film about Cybertron on the central workstation's holographic projector. Optimus wasn't sure how helpful that would be given that the neophytes flatly disbelieved the datafiles on the Maximal and Predacon crews that showed them in their robot bodies. Optimus sat at the scanner station and watched the film for a while without recognising it. It was slow-paced and had long, sweeping shots of cityscapes, so he guessed it was one Rhinox had brought. There was no plot, just a narrator reciting the occasional poem.

Which seemed to be exactly what Rattrap wanted. As soon as the narrator finished, he'd cut in. "This is Tylus City. It's called that 'cause it's actually four cities in a triangle - one in the middle and three as the points. Looks real nice from orbit. The one at the northern tip used to be called Sunix ..."

"What's up, big bot?"

Optimus shushed Cheetor, who had just bounced in. "I think Rattrap's hoping to trigger their memories with pictures of Cybertron. New clothes?"

"The shoes are," said Cheetor but quieter so he wouldn't interrupt Rattrap. "I think they'll be easier to run in if they don't cover my ankles. The rest is just cutting bits off for ventilation." He'd taken the sleeves off his shirt and cut the legs off his trousers above the knees. Then, "I don't think the pictures will work. Me and Airazor tried that with Tigatron once." Compared to the others, Airazor was practically undamaged. She still had most of her life on Cybertron. Some of her memories were actually Cheetor's but not enough to cause her too much confusion.

Neither Quickstrike nor Silverbolt had been put on full shifts yet because of their amnesia. Optimus was quite sure they'd obey any 'Don't let the Predacons mess with this' order but Rattrap and Dinobot had ganged up on him and loudly insisted that the neophytes be taught why exactly there was a difference between the factions before they were assigned to anything important. So Optimus had delegated Quickstrike and Silverbolt's education to Rattrap and Dinobot. Not that the newcomers needed any encouragement. Without their official teachers around they would latch onto whoever was available and in the absence of other people they would get into the _Axalon's_ records. They might not believe they were Transformers but they found it all fascinating anyway. Usually. Quickstrike was fidgeting in his seat, restless and unhappy about sitting still for so long.

He was doing better than Cheetor, who grew bored after only a few minutes. "What's it like outside? It's not going to rain, is it?"

Optimus reached back and activated the console he was sitting at. "Not yet. It looks like it'll be sunny and hot today."

"I'm going to go for a run before it heats up too much."

"Be careful," Optimus admonished.

The scout grinned. "Hey, I know for a _fact_ that there's no Preds out there."

"There's animals. Arm yourself anyway."

"But carrying a gun will slow me down!" Cheetor caught Optimus' look and sighed. "Fine. I'll hit my quarters before I go outside."

Optimus reached up and lightly scratched the back of Cheetor's neck, just under the hair. "Good."

Cheetor grinned and disappeared back into the ship. Optimus suddenly realised he hadn't heard Rattrap's voice for a few minutes and found the other three watching him - Rattrap amused, Quickstrike listless, and Silverbolt with the frown of disapproval he seemed to wear most of the time. "Sorry. We weren't trying to be disruptive."

"Enh, no problem. It's not like there's much to interrupt in this film." Rattrap shrugged. "Don't worry about the kid. There's not many big critters around the base any more. Whatever wasn't scared off by the fighting around here, Dinobot ate. They know robots are trouble and it ain't been long enough for 'em to notice we ain't robots no more. I'd be more worried about whether he brought a chronometer so's he shows up on time for his shift."

"Never _were_ robots," Quickstrike muttered. Silverbolt shushed him.

The three of them got back to watching the movie. Optimus activated the monitor at his station and tried to find Cheetor with the outside cameras. He seemed to be headed towards the plain.

Several minutes later, Dinobot walked in and stood near Optimus, arms folded across his chest, watching Rattrap and the neophytes. "No doubt Rattrap is filling their heads with all sorts of nonsense," the warrior rumbled quietly.

"It's an art film," said Optimus.

Dinobot's eyebrows almost vanished beneath his headband. "I'm surprised you're allowing ... Wait. A real art film or a Maximal art film?"

"It's someone reading poetry about landscapes."

"Ah," said Dinobot. " _Maximal_ art."

"What's wrong with Maximal art?" asked Optimus. "What's the difference?"

"No one died to make this."

He always found it hard to tell when Dinobot was kidding. Optimus decided to let it slide. "What are your plans for the morning?"

"Quickstrike and Silverbolt will be handed over to me once this shift is up. I plan on starting them sparring." At Optimus' pained look, Dinobot growled. "I am a _warrior_. What did you _expect_ me to teach them?"

"Mostly I want you to balance out Rattrap's opinions," said Optimus. "He can be ... emphatic."

"Silverbolt is naïve. Such things can be worked on. Quickstrike is looking forward to my lessons."

"I suppose it would be too optimistic to hope they might not need combat training," said Optimus. "Which brings me to another point ..."

Dinobot made a derisive noise. "Hnh. Predacon business."

"I'm going to ask Megatron if he's up to going back to the Predacon base."

"Do not _ask_ him," said Dinobot. " _Order_ him."

"I'm not going to play macho power-games with Megatron, Dinobot."

The warrior shook his head. "He does not want you treating him as if he were weak. Order him as if he were strong."

"But what if he doesn't feel up to it?"

"Then he will make an excuse or argue you out of your plan. Do not worry for his health. Megatron is more than capable of taking care of himself." Then, "If he does decide he wishes to return, I ask that I accompany him. I have a better chance of detecting treachery in him than you do."

Optimus nodded. "That sounds reasonable."

"All right, cuttin' it off here 'cause the shift's up," said Rattrap. "There's six more megacycles of ... I _heard_ that, 'Strike."

"You were meant to," said Quickstrike, folding his arms across his chest, completely unapologetic for his disgusted snort. "I ain't sittin' through no more landscapes."

"It's cultural!" Rattrap insisted.

"Now you're just blowin' exhaust! It's plain boring is what it is!"

"Culture isn't dull!"

"Perhaps _Maximal_ culture is," said Dinobot, walking around the central workstation to loom over Rattrap. "Shall we trade lesson plans tomorrow?"

Rattrap whirled on Dinobot, jabbing a finger at his chest. "Don't you _dare_ teach 'em how to be Preds!"

"And here I'd always been told that _true_ art transcends faction." Dinobot sighed theatrically. "But I suppose it's for the best, unless I want to find you've taught them how to shoot people in the back."

"It's a useful skill!" Rattrap insisted. Silverbolt snapped around to fix him with a _you_ can't _be serious_ expression.

"So, were you planning to teach them how to fight by demonstrating?" Optimus asked mildly.

Dinobot took a step back. Rattrap turned away to pick at the console. "They're all yours, chopperface," he grumbled. "Try not to break 'em."

"At least _I_ will teach them something _useful_ ," Dinobot countered, unable to resist getting the last dig in, walking to the lift with the neophytes in his wake, both dragging their feet. In Silverbolt that was expected - he never seemed thrilled with the idea of violence. In Quickstrike it was strange. _Maybe he just didn't sleep well._

"I _liked_ the movie," Silverbolt reassured Rattrap as the lift descended.

His shift was up but Rattrap stuck around, idly scrolling through the small catalogue of films they'd taken from Cybertron. Optimus set about arranging things for his shift, checking the various cameras. There had already been ones installed in the more sensitive areas of the ship but they'd added some in the laboratories and hallways. The Predacons were behaving themselves so far but he knew better than to trust them. Optimus glanced over at Rattrap. "I didn't think you were into art films."

Rattrap shrugged. "I'm not, I just wanted somethin' with pictures of Cybertron in. Not usually the views _I_ see, but ... y'know."

"I know." _Homesick ... Rattrap's been upset about leaving Cybertron since we crashed here. It seems incongruous in someone who signed up to be a long-term, long-range explorer, but there's a difference between willingly going away and being forced to stay away._

"Optimus?"

Optimus looked back to find Rhinox standing by the entrance to the hallway with something like a toolbox on a strap over his shoulder, and raised his eyebrows. "What happened to ...?"

The engineer chuckled, running a hand over his smooth, dark scalp. "I was getting furry on the sides so I thought I'd just take it all off." He still had his short beard, however.

"You'll have to tell me how you did it." Optimus had no problems with the hair on his head or the rest of his body but he found facial hair to be itchy and he thought the shaggy growth looked odd on himself. Even as a gorilla the area around his mouth hadn't had fur.

"What I don't get is why it's just us," said Rattrap. 'Us' being Optimus, Rattrap, Rhinox, and Quickstrike. Cheetor was also fairly fuzzy but since it was fine and downy it wasn't very noticeable. "I thought it mighta been something to do with our beast-modes since none of the Preds got much hair on 'em, but then how come Tigatron ain't got a beard?"

"It might just be random genetics," said Optimus.

Rattrap tugged his ponytail over his shoulder and frowned at it. "I dunno. Everything else has been analogued, y'know? I'm still short and coppery and even this long hair hangs kinda like my rat-tail used to in robot-mode and Rhinox is still big and ... well, he ain't green no more, but he was a brown rhino and Tigatron's still got her stripes and Cheetor's got his spots even if they're tiny ... There's not a lot of random here."

"We'll figure it out," said Rhinox. "Optimus, I'll show you how I shaved my head after your shift." He dug a datadisc out of his toolbox and handed it to his leader. "I was looking at the code from Quickstrike and Silverbolt's pods again. You know how I said before how I think the pods scanned one another to fill in missing bits of their datatracks?" Rhinox asked. "Now I'm sure. I've found identical strings of code in their pods' circuits. I'm not sure who the original was but my guess is Quickstrike. It seems to match his code more than it matches Silverbolt's."

Optimus inserted the disc into the computer. Data filled the screen in no pattern he could immediately determine. "Do you know what it says?"

"No. The best I can tell you is that it's part of their personality programming."

"Maybe it's the sex issues," chuckled Optimus. "Though why they have them at all is beyond me."

"Maybe one of them was our lab biologist. I don't know why anyone else would be interested." Rhinox leaned over Optimus' shoulder to reach the console, then tapped a few keys and brought up more code. "I think the pods scanning each other is why they've at least got their basic functions but not personal memories. Whatever one was missing the other could fill in."

"Hm." Optimus frowned. "Sparks hold memories. Is there a way we could tap into that?"

"We couldn't even attempt it without our spark surgeon, and they're in one of the stasis pods. But their spark-memories might just resurface naturally," said Rhinox, then smiled slightly. "I'm taking the morning off, though. Rattrap insisted."

Rattrap appeared at Rhinox's side and thumped him lightly on the back. "Enh, you've been starin' at code and pod parts for two days straight," he said, then turned to Optimus. "We're headin' out, boss. Not too far, though. If the Preds act up, you can give us a yell."

They left. Optimus fiddled with the outside scanners. Rattrap and Rhinox seemed to be headed in the same general direction that Dinobot and his charges went, towards a green area out behind the _Axalon_. The pair would like it to look at the plants, the trio would find it easier to land on than rock if they were sparring. Cheetor was trickier to find but he had gone off in the other direction, racing himself across the plain.

 

* * *

 

Darkness and weightlessness became dimness and the yielding contours of packing foam. It was an unnerving awakening from horror to alien and Airazor whimpered quietly before consciousness and Tigatron's scent reassured her. _Everything's soft now. Soft isn't anything to be afraid of._ Generally used to keep delicate equipment from scraping and banging around in a cargo crate, a few sheets of packing foam laid on a berth made a serviceable mattress. That had been Scorponok's idea and he'd been surprised no one else had thought of it. It was only realising that the Predacon second-in-command had been sleeping better than everyone else that caused questions and revealed his solution.

Airazor reached up and patted the hand stroking her hair. "You didn't have to wait around." She had her head pillowed on one of Tigatron's thighs, bare as usual. The tracker only wore clothing when she had to. While Airazor found both fabric and flesh rather odd-feeling she had a bit of a preference for skin, at least when it came to Tigatron. There was something more real about it.

"I wanted to." Tigatron set aside the datapad she held in her other hand. "You were mumbling in your sleep. I couldn't make out the words but you sounded upset."

Airazor sat up, rubbing at her forehead. "I'm fine. It was just a nightmare." Then, "Sentinel, restore normal illumination."

The lights obligingly came on. "What happened?" asked Tigatron.

"Well, nothing was menacing _me_ ," said Airazor, leaning against Tigatron, who draped an arm around her shoulders. "It was night and I was flying when I suddenly heard a voice calling for help over my radio. He was terrified but trying very hard to speak clearly." _They are dead. They are all dead. Please, if anyone can hear, please help me!_ "I told him I was coming to help, tried to keep him talking, because I knew that if he stopped talking that meant that he was dead and I'd been too slow to save him. So I flew as fast as I could, certain that any second I was going to hear him die ... and then I woke up." Airazor shook her head. "I didn't notice during the dream, but thinking of it now, the caller had Silverbolt's voice."

"Silverbolt? Why?"

"I don't know. I've talked to him a few times. He seems nice enough, if a bit uptight," said Airazor. "He's never asked me for help, panicked or otherwise, though he's offered it a few times. He can't bear to watch other people carry things, I think." She shrugged. "He has a very distinctive voice."

Tigatron nodded. "Perhaps that's all."

They went down to the xenobotany lab that had given up its original purpose to become the new refuelling centre. There was more variety now as different plants and animals were added to the list of things deemed chemically safe to eat.

Tigatron wrinkled her nose. "This place smells like ..."

"Rattrap?"

"I wasn't going to say that."

There was supposed to be one of the _Axalon's_ little round cleaner drones permanently assigned to the room now but there was organic debris littering the floor. Airazor knelt down to check the access tunnel. It was clear of both obstructions and drones.

Airazor, pragmatically omnivorous, ate whatever she had a craving for whenever it struck, trusting her body to understand its own chemistry better than she did. It seemed to be working so far. Right now she decided was that she wanted one of the fist-sized, pale yellow fruits. There weren't many in the bin - they were popular because they tasted rather like turpentine. Texture didn't bother her - she'd eaten things as a robot, after all - but swallowing felt strange with a soft throat. Because of that she took little bites, still poking around to see where the cleaner drone might have gone.

Tigatron didn't much like eating plants and only did because she recognised her body as omnivorous. Apparently at this moment she decided she could skip it - the tracker had gone over to the decontamination chamber and picked at the remains of the small bushbuck that Dinobot had brought in the day before. He'd been told not to hunt alone but in his usual way had ignored the order and simply vanished for several hours. There were only a few scraps of that left as well - fresh flesh had a bitter, iron-tinged flavour that the Cybertronians liked for its familiarity. It had taken them a few tries to program the decontamination field to deal with things like bacteria and leave the flesh alone.

When she finished, Tigatron licked her fingers clean. "Have we any set tasks for the day?"

"No. We'll probably be foraging since the supplies are looking low." Airazor finally found the drone under the table, flipped onto its back, stiff cilia waving sadly. She righted it and the drone immediately scooted away to clean the deck plates.

"I would also like to come up with more thorough protocols for cleaning this room," said Tigatron, stepping aside when the cleaner drone nudged her foot to get at a patch of floor. She always wore her boots, even if she wasn't wearing anything else, for that reason among others - the wire-brush underside of the drones would cut up her feet if they were bare. "Organic matter rots. This cannot be hygienic."

Airazor led the way up to the command centre. Optimus was the only one there, on his monitor duty shift, sitting with his elbows on a console and looking up at a screen with a view of the outside.

The Predacons were maybe a hundred metres from the base, in a rocky area, using the larger stones as seats. Airazor knew the area well - it was one of the Predacons' favourite spots to shoot at the _Axalon_ from. Without turning, Optimus said, "I think Megatron called a staff meeting. There's been some arguing but no fighting."

"I suppose we can't pick up what they're saying," said Airazor.

"I tried already," said Optimus, swivelling his chair to face them. "They're too far away. I'd bet that's the point. Oh, Tigatron, which room did you claim as your quarters? I know where everyone is now but you."

"Well, it hardly matters since I'm never there except to sleep ..." Tigatron hedged.

Airazor grinned. "She's with me."

Their leader nodded. "Fine. Now, I was thinking ..."

"Er. This is all right?" asked Tigatron. "This isn't considered fraternising?"

"We're not exactly a strict operation," said Optimus. "Whatever doesn't get in the way of your jobs is none of my business and if you're happy together, I'm glad. And speaking of your jobs, I wanted to run an idea by you."

"Yes?"

"I was thinking it might be a good idea to do a more detailed study of the larger primates," said Optimus. "Since ... unless the aliens suddenly change their minds or we miraculously come up with a way to change back, we're going to be like this for some time. Tigatron?"

The tracker nodded. "Long-term planning would be prudent, yes. We'd need to double-check their body chemistry to make sure they're similar enough to us for such research to be useful, of course."

"Good. With Quickstrike and Silverbolt here now we won't be outnumbered by the Predacons if you two do some longer missions."

"Nothing too long at first," said Airazor. "We don't know our limits yet."

"And I'd prefer you didn't go until we've got commlinks again," said Optimus. "According to Scorponok they're are fairly close to complete, or at least the prototypes are."

"I think that gorilla colony Tigatron and Cheetor checked out on the first day is still the closest group of large primates in the area, though chimpanzees might be worth checking out as well," said Airazor. She glanced up at Tigatron, who hadn't said anything since she'd agreed with the idea. "You have any suggestions?" the scout nudged.

"I ..." Tigatron hesitated a moment and almost seemed as if she was going to hug Optimus for giving her the assignment but the moment passed and she smiled warmly instead. "Thank you." Then, embarrassed by the show of emotion, Tigatron turned to the central workstation and summoned up a holographic map. "I know of one group of chimpanzees within ... I would say three day's walk from here now, and a second gorilla colony four days ..."

Optimus chuckled and shook his head. "I'm glad you're so enthusiastic."

Tigatron got down to business, plotting routes and supplies. Airazor contributed ideas when she had them but mostly she just stood back and let Tigatron take control. This was Tigatron's dream job after all - studying organic creatures in an attempt to become more like one herself.

 

* * *

 

"She took my mice! Mice _exist_ to be eaten! And tortured for science. And I like to do both ..."

"Silverbolt keeps giving me dirty looks. I've never even _talked_ to him!"

"Have you seen how Cheetor follows you around to spy on you and tries to pretend he's not? I think he _wants_ to be punched."

"Quickstrike _pinched_ me!"

"If Waspinator wanted to be treated like charity project by Maximals, Waspinator would have stayed on Cybertron!"

Megatron sat back and let his minions complain. It relieved some of the pressure. _It will only get worse,_ he knew. _Right now, Predacon and Maximal alike are feeling weak and confused. When we cannot avoid each other we try to ignore each other. This will not last._ They couldn't fight now even if they didn't need the Maximals - of the seven Predacons, only three were at full strength, such as it was. Megatron, Scorponok, Terrorsaur, and Waspinator still carried damages from the superheated air inside the Predacon base. The burns on their faces and Scorponok's hands still looked strange and whitish and waxy but they seemed to be healing. Their voices still rasped from the burns in their throats but at least it no longer hurt simply to breathe. Megatron found himself tiring faster than he thought he should. If the others had the same problem, they never told him.

He'd picked the spot outside because it was in the shade of a tall rock formation, had plenty of places to sit, and was far enough away from the _Axalon_ that the Maximals wouldn't bother with them but not so far that the Maximals would come looking.

"It's kind of fun watching Optimus," said Terrorsaur. The air warrior had immediately claimed the tallest rock that was still scaleable. He didn't sit like most of them, instead hunched over in a vaguely birdlike crouch with his arms draped over his knees. Unfortunately, this spot was directly above Megatron, who was using the tall rock as a backrest. It made Megatron uncomfortable to have him there but he wasn't going to admit that. "He can't stand us but he tries so hard to be nice. You can _see_ him put the effort in. The others don't bother."

"Rhinox seems okay," said Scorponok, sitting on a low rock with his long braid lying carefully beside him. He'd quickly learned to avoid sitting on it and pulling it. Suggestions that he might cut the thigh-length rope to something more manageable were invariably met with, _'Cut off my_ tail _? Are you_ crazy _?'_ Scorponok flinched slightly when the others looked at him but quickly switched into belligerent defiance. "What? So I ask him where stuff is sometimes. A tech's going to know better than a warrior."

"No one was accusing scorpion-bot of fraternising," soothed Waspinator, the only Predacon sitting on the ground. With her back to the rocks she was completely out of sight of the _Axalon_. If the Maximals suddenly decided to open fire, Waspinator was going to make sure she couldn't be hit.

Blackarachnia, seated above and to Waspinator's left, legs crossed and dangling down not quite close enough to use Waspinator's shoulder as a footrest, chuckled. "Those two that Inferno found missed the 'Predacons are bad' communiqué." She leaned back on her hands, rolled her shoulders, and the action sent the movement down her whole torso. "It can be annoying how they tag along and Quickstrike can get grabby but I never have to lift anything if they're around. Maximals can be _so_ helpful."

"Heh, something to do on a slow day," said Tarantulas, stretched out on her side on a flat rock, arms extended and head pillowed on her bicep. She quite enjoyed her new body, in her own strange way. Shaped more or less like the body she had designed for Blackarachnia, she seemed determined to act the way her creation did. Tarantulas hadn't quite got the hip-swing down yet or taken to trailing her nails down people's chests but Megatron thought it was just a matter of time. _Why_ she did it was another question. Possibly Tarantulas was just trying to show Blackarachnia up, an _I designed you to be this and I'm better at it than you are._ "Try to tempt the little innocents over to the dark side. Not that they seem to be good for much, but it would give the Maximals something to worry about, teheheheh."

Inferno, standing close enough to Megatron to look official but not as close as she used to, said nothing. She'd said hardly anything in the last few days, ever since she ran out of Megatron's quarters shouting that he was no longer the Queen. She still followed after Megatron out of habit. Inferno worked because she couldn't do anything else but she worked like an automaton.

Megatron let his minions vent for a while, then called for their attention. "Now then," he said. "Have we all realised what planet we're on?"

There were murmurs of assent from Scorponok, Tarantulas, Terrorsaur, and Waspinator. Blackarachnia and Inferno admitted denial. Megatron nodded. "You two weren't part of the original operation. But first - has anyone told the Maximals?"

This got a more definite "No!" from the Predacons. Megatron smiled. "Good. Blackarachnia, Inferno, this planet is Earth."

Blackarachnia's eyebrows lifted. "The last major alien battleground in the Great War. But ... wasn't that planet at least partially industrialised?"

"It was, in our own time. Our transwarp ship seems to have sent us backward in time some distance. I thought possibly forward - civilisations _do_ crumble - but backward seems more likely given the marks that have appeared on the moon. I'm not sure how far. This would seem to imply that in our current situation," - here Megatron looked at his hand with an expression of distaste - "we are human. Personally, all I know of the species is that it is small, soft, and produced Dinobot's favourite writer."

"Dinobot must know where we are," said Tarantulas.

"I wonder about that, actually," said Megatron. "I'm certain the Maximals don't know. At the moment this does us little good. Still, it is knowledge, knowledge is power, and we don't share power with Maximals, no."

"Predacons share everything else with them," Waspinator grumbled.

"Unless we can overhaul the environmental systems in our base without dying of exposure, we cannot return there. The pumps can only clear out so much of the lava," said Megatron. "Remaining at the _Axalon_ and upholding the truce is still the most practical option."

"You want us to act _nice_ to the _Maximals_?" asked Scorponok.

"Oh, absolutely not," said Megatron. "I resent this truce as much as the rest of you do. Be honest in your emotions. They will only be suspicious if we start acting friendly." He smiled and leaned forward. "Do not be honest in your _intentions_. Our plans will continue, yes." No one asked why they didn't just kill the Maximals. Even if the Predacons knew how to live in organic bodies, it was still easier to let the Maximals deal with the practical business of survival while they worked on their own projects, ostensibly for the good of all.

Terrorsaur made a derisive noise, reached down, and tugged a lock of Megatron's hair. Megatron caught the offending hand and tumbled the air warrior off the rock. Terrorsaur yelped and managed to twist enough to land on his back instead of on his face. Megatron poked him with the toe of his boot and got a wheezy squawk in reply - his minion was only stunned.

"Show a bit of optimism," Megatron chided a moment later as Terrorsaur recovered and slunk away to sit with Waspinator. "These bodies are merely a setback. They _do_ delay us - I don't want to start anything until we've returned to full strength. We _are_ outnumbered now after all."

"At least they're not acting like they're doing us a big favour," said Tarantulas. "They hate that we're here and they admit it. I wouldn't be able to put up with smug Maximal sanctimony on top of all of this."

"What do you want us to do until then?" asked Scorponok.

"Keep to the truce. Assist the Maximals if they ask for it and if you are able - though you don't have to pretend you like it. And you might as well start viewing the _Axalon_ as 'home'," said Megatron. "Until we get our proper bodies back we're rather stuck here. This will also aid in convincing the Maximals that we're resigned to the truce. Once they've been lulled into a false sense of security it will be easier to continue with our true agenda."

Tarantulas laughed. "So it's just like back on Cybertron."

"Indeed. Remember that if you ever start feeling kindly-disposed towards our 'hosts'. Return to the tasks you had left off yesterday - I will summon you if I need you. Dismissed."

The other Predacons picked themselves up and headed off on their assorted assignments. Megatron singled one out. "Not you, Inferno." Megatron had once found Inferno's boundless enthusiasm and unthinking loyalty to be a bit annoying. He liked her current state less.

She didn't seem like she was going to snap herself out of it and Megatron didn't feel like waiting. "Inferno, we need to have a little talk about your attitude these last few days."

Inferno didn't come to attention, merely turned and waited. Megatron folded his arms across his chest. "I have tolerated your ant outlook but I have my limits. This is getting beyond ridiculous. It doesn't _matter_ that I'm male."

She wouldn't meet his gaze, instead hanging her head to address Megatron's boots. "It does. You have been weakened. That body ..."

"We have _all_ been weakened. _This_ body is exactly the same type as _your_ body. You don't seem worried about yourself."

"Forgive me," said Inferno stiffly, "but not _exactly_ the same ..."

Megatron stood up. He couldn't loom over Inferno any more but he was still the taller of the two. "Perhaps the important thing here is that I'm still bigger and stronger than you. Do we need to have a little rite of combat reminder of the hierarchy?"

"I know your rank. It doesn't matter." The warrior looked miserable. "You are not the Queen."

_You are not the Queen._ It was Inferno's mantra these days, sadly murmured when she thought Megatron couldn't hear, rarely said to his face. As he understood it, the queen of an ant colony was a living factory to create workers and soldiers and drones to serve her. But Inferno _knew_ how Cybertronian life was created, she understood about the factories and protoforms and programming and sparks. Yet Megatron had not been some kind of factory before. He'd never sparked a new life from himself. He'd never reprogrammed a stasis pod. _Well, not lately._

A queen was a shell factory. Workers maintained it and soldiers defended it. Drones were necessary to the creation of new life somehow. Technicians, or ... _No. More that drones give up their sparks to the queen so that she might split them into many sparks to give life to the shells she created. Ant queens are invariably female, but ..._

It hadn't mattered before. In the Cybertronian language there was only one personal pronoun for a sentient mechanism. Inferno had used it for everyone, as they all did. Now they were using xeno pronouns to match their alien forms and he was the wrong sex. "Inferno, I was not female before."

"You were not male," Inferno reminded him. "And I know you had created life. The Dinobot clone."

She hadn't been there but any of the others could have mentioned it. "You are aware I used a machine for that, yes? And he had no spark. The clone was in no way my offspring."

"But you _could_ have, if you chose," Inferno insisted. "And I know what you were before. Tarantulas told me once."

_Blasted spider._ Inferno knew Cybertronian concepts, they just all got strained through an ant filter. The potential to spark new life was in all of them, barring some weakness. It had made Megatron female _enough_. Add in that he was the largest one in the crew and the leader ... Predacon thoughts were strong enough that Inferno still followed orders, but the ant thoughts were insisting that there was something fundamentally wrong.

"You _know_ that I am still myself?" Megatron demanded.

"Yes," said Inferno, finally lifting her head to look him in the eyes. "You are Megatron."

"And you know that I am your leader."

"You are Megatron," she repeated. "You lead the Predacons. I am a Predacon and therefore you are my leader."

"You _will_ obey me."

"Yes." But she slumped then and looked at the ground. "You are Megatron, leader of the Predacons. But you are not the Queen."

Megatron sighed, for the moment defeated. "That will have to do. Dismissed."

He watched her walk away, back towards the _Axalon_. _I never liked the 'Queen' title, but it did cement Inferno's loyalty to me. At least Primal is also male. Inferno won't be getting any ... ideas. Dinobot's already decided to play Maximal, I will_ not _lose Inferno to them as well, no!_

Megatron followed, rather more slowly, partly to put some distance between himself and Inferno, partly because he didn't have the energy for speed and too much activity made his head ache. Movement on the roof made him flinch out of habit even though he knew the base defences were off - it turned out just to be Terrorsaur sitting on top of the ship. The air warrior made a rude gesture him. Megatron ignored it.

He tried to stop the lift on the lower level so he could go back to his quarters without dealing with any Maximals but Megatron found himself up in the command centre anyway - apparently someone wanted to talk to him and overrode the lift controls. A quick glance around the room showed Tigatron and Airazor standing by the central workstation, the former glaring at Inferno, and Optimus standing by the lift override. Megatron put his hands on his hips and turned to Optimus. "Well?"

"Inferno's complaining," Optimus explained. "She wants to borrow one of Tigatron's spare guns. Tigatron doesn't want to lend it."

Megatron looked over at Inferno, one eyebrow lifted. "What do you need a cold-based weapon for?"

"Hunting," said Inferno flatly. "I require ice after my fire."

"There," said Megatron. "Inferno is simply being responsible. If she accidentally sets the jungle on fire she can put it out."

Tigatron and Optimus exchanged looks, then Tigatron sighed and gestured Inferno to follow. Optimus turned back to Megatron. "While I have your attention, I want to go to your base and pick up some equipment."

Megatron frowned. " _I_ don't."

"Any preference on when you'd like to make the excursion?" No sarcasm, just query.

"Are you in a hurry?"

"If it will help us get our metal back?" asked Optimus. "Yes."

"That will not happen quickly. I doubt that a delay will matter," said Megatron, hitting the lift control.

When he reached his quarters, Megatron glanced around the room and sighed. He'd added a high-backed chair with padding that he could sleep on. There were a few sheets of packing foam on the floor near the door - Inferno refused to take the berth, even though Megatron didn't use it and said that she could. Inferno had very firm ideas about her place. So he used the berth as a shelf and left the computer there when he didn't have it perched on his lap to work. It was a rather pathetic device but it could access the _Axalon's_ main computer, or at least those bits that Optimus had deemed Allowed To Be Seen By Predacons. Megatron hadn't had the energy to try to hack it yet.

He settled back in his chair without picking up his computer and closed his eyes. _I just awakened recently! I should not be feeling tired again so soon! Perhaps I should raise the oxygen level in here. That seemed to help a little before._

 


	2. Chapter 2

"I should be working. There's still so much we need to know."

"Ah-h-h, you're glad that I dragged you out here."

Rhinox settled back on the springy grass under a tree with a smile, hands behind his head. "Fine. You're right."

"See? Trust the rat."

Lying around in the shade was a bit too slow for Rattrap's sense of fun, but he knew Rhinox liked it and he needed the break badly. The engineer hadn't so much as gone outside the _Axalon_ since he picked up the scrap from the wasteland pod site and the intact blank protoform two days ago. He hadn't had a single chance to come out and just enjoy the outdoors.

Rhinox closed his eyes, soaking up the morning with his other senses. Rattrap rooted through his toolbox, knowing Rhinox wouldn't mind, and took out his datapad. He settled against the engineer, using him as a backrest, and skimmed through the files. When he found there was nothing on it he had any interest in reading, he put it back and got up again.

Rhinox opened his eyes. "You're bouncing around worse than Cheetor."

"Hey, you unwind in your way and I'll unwind in mine," Rattrap said lightly. He'd been stuck inside almost as much as Rhinox had, doing repairs, making sure the alien energy wave hadn't messed up the _Axalon's_ systems, and making up plumbing as he went along.

Dinobot and the neophytes were a distance away, close enough to see and hear but not to actually make out words. Dinobot glanced over when Rattrap waved, then went back to whatever it was he was doing. Not much from what Rattrap could see, just talking. The neophytes didn't seem very interested.

"I was arguin' with Tigatron yesterday," said Rattrap idly, still watching the warrior. "I said somethin' homesick and she said she'd always seen this planet as home and I took it bad and snapped at her and she snapped back. Then chopperface butted in with some story about how there's this legend that the first Transformers were made like they just grew outta Cybertron, and that afterwards it was like all Transformers always carried a bit of Cybertron with them no matter where they were. And I said what's that do for us _now_ and he said we'd lost that connection, then he walked off. I don't get him."

"Maybe he was saying he feels homesick, too," said Rhinox.

"Maybe he's just nuts."

"What about you and Tigatron?"

"Oh," said Rattrap, turning back. "Yeah, Tigatron said she'd take me on a hike sometime so's I can properly appreciate beauty of nature and I said if she tried it I was gonna take her to this club I know so's she can properly appreciate the beauty of glow-dancers. So we're cool."

"Heh."

Rattrap wandered off a short way, unconsciously patrolling the small grove. _Even if we got back to Cybertron what could I do there? I'd never survive a bar fight in this body. Pit, I wouldn't even survive a drink!_

_Maybe we'd be able to get metal bodies again, more resources back home ... Hnh, if we lived that long. No, we can't go back, not like this._

Something caught Rattrap's eye and he laughed suddenly. Rhinox sat up and called to him: "What is it?"

"Wild bean vines." Rattrap pulled one of the long seed pods off and walked back to Rhinox. "I know we've been jokin' about these things since day one but I gotta admit to curiosity here. One of those things I _know_ I shouldn't do but I just gotta see what happens."

"You can't just ingest random things and expect them to turn into fuel now," said Rhinox, pulling a scanner out of his toolbox.

"But everything tastes interesting now," Rattrap protested, kneeling on the grass. Not always _good_ , but interesting. Of the senses that they retained as organics, taste was the one that had changed the most. Some of them found this unpleasant but Rattrap thought it was a great deal of fun. Refueling was an adventure.

He held up the seed pod so Rhinox could scan it. After a moment, the engineer shook his head. "They're poisonous."

Rattrap peered at the seed pod. "Already guessed _that_."

"They only had an effect on me because of the energon discharge virus," said Rhinox. "Under ordinary circumstances these would have just been more convertible matter. They're poisonous to these bodies. Too many alkaloids."

"How poisonous?"

"One of those seed pods could probably kill everyone on the _Axalon_."

Rattrap dropped the plant. "Well, we _knew_ the things were powerful -"

He was cut off by a loud, wet, _organic_ sound that he'd never heard before and immediately hoped he'd never hear again. Both Maximals were immediately on their feet. "What the blazes was that?" Rhinox asked.

"I don't know if I even _wanna_ know," said Rattrap. He turned to see if Dinobot and the others had heard and found that Quickstrike had fallen to his knees. Dinobot saw Rattrap watching and waved them over. "Slag, something's wrong with 'Strike. Come on!"

By the time Rattrap and Rhinox covered the distance, the others had moved a few metres from where they had been - Silverbolt half-dragging Quickstrike. It didn't make any sense until they got there.

"What happened?" Rattrap demanded.

Dinobot made a small gesture near his throat. "Fuel rejection. System purge."

Quickstrike had blown his tank. Rattrap had never put any thought into the process that turned food into energy. It went in one end and whatever was left over came out the other. He hadn't wondered what the intermediate stage looked like but found out now because apparently it could also come back up the intake. It looked sludgy and the sour smell made his throat twitch. _And here I'd thought nothin' could stink worse than lava. Life is just full of discoveries, ain't it?_

They'd moved away from the mess. Quickstrike was sitting on the ground, legs drawn up to rest his elbows on his knees and his hands on the back of his head. Silverbolt was hovering near him, worried but uncertain what to do. Rattrap went over, reached down, and patted Quickstrike on the shoulder. "You okay?"

"I sure hope not," mumbled the blond, then spat. "Hate to think feelin' like this was normal."

Rattrap rounded on Dinobot. "You went too hard on 'em, didn't you? You _know_ we don't know what kinda damage these bodies can take and you went and pushed - mmph!"

Dinobot's hand clamped around the lower half of Rattrap's face. "I was teaching them theory. I never laid a hand on them. Don't even _think_ of biting me." The way Dinobot was holding him, biting would have been difficult. Rattrap drove his fist into Dinobot's midsection instead. The warrior grunted, then released Rattrap after a few deliberate seconds to prove that he was letting go out of choice. "They were listless at the start of the shift," Dinobot continued. "Perhaps it was something _you_ did."

"I ... It was first thing in the morning! I thought they'd slept badly and Quickstrike was just bein' surly because he thought the film was boring!"

"So you _did_ think that something was wrong and did nothing, then tried to blame _me_ when it got worse!"

"Shut up, okay?"

Behind them, Rhinox had taken over, scanner in hand and asking questions. "When did you first realise you felt wrong?"

"Enh, 'fore I went to sleep last night," said Quickstrike.

"Why didn't you _say_ anything?" Rattrap demanded, stomping over and glaring down at the blond.

Quickstrike shrugged. "Figured I could tough it out."

Before Rattrap could shout at him for being irresponsible, Rhinox stepped in. "We're still just learning these bodies. If something goes wrong with them, we need to know immediately."

Silverbolt looked sheepish. "Ah. I said nothing for I do not wish to be a bother, but ..."

"You, too?" Rattrap yelled. "For bootin' up cold! You gotta _tell_ us things!"

Rattrap left Rhinox to it and went back to Dinobot. The warrior was standing a few metres away, uncertain what to do and staying out of Rhinox's way. "You seem fond of the neophytes," he said when Rattrap rejoined him.

_Optimus handed their trainin' over to me. And to you but you don't care so you don't count. And I'm the one who found 'em out in that wasteland. So I feel responsible for 'em._ "So what?" Rattrap finished out loud.

"If they wish to act carelessly, it is not your fault."

"Look, it's _nothing_ ," Quickstrike, still seated on the ground, was insisting to Rhinox. "I'd been feelin' kinda twisted up inside but it's untwisted itself. And I've been feelin' tired. So what? The worst of it's over. Can't think of anythin' bein' worse than that tank purge."

Rhinox glanced over at Silverbolt. "And you?"

"A general malaise," said Silverbolt defensively. "Little energy. Minor cramps along here," he said, touching a hand to his midsection. "Nothing I was particularly concerned about. I mention it only because you insisted."

The engineer tucked his scanner back into its compartment. "I'm taking you both back to the _Axalon_ to run some more tests."

"I don't see why I gotta -"

"You walk or you go over my shoulder," said Rhinox evenly. "Your choice."

"Tarnation!" Quickstrike cursed, pulling himself to his feet. "I'll walk, you oversized varmint!"

Quickstrike complained most of the way back to the _Axalon_ that everyone was overreacting and shouldn't _he_ know best since it was _his_ body? Dinobot's snarl didn't shut him up but a few words from Silverbolt did. _He always caves in to what 'Bolt wants,_ Rattrap realised. It was grudging and Quickstrike would often argue but when Silverbolt held firm, he got his way. _I know they'd been in a fight before we found 'em. I'm thinkin' Silverbolt won._

The control centre wasn't any darker than the outdoors had been. Rattrap squinted up through the roof hatch, briefly wondered why it was open, and forgot about it. Sometimes people talked about putting up a ladder but no one had bothered yet. The environmental compensators could deal with the heat, the breeze was nice enough, and Rattrap had other things on his mind.

Optimus, Tigatron, and Airazor were around the central workstation, which was projecting a holographic terrain map. Optimus looked up. "You're all back early."

"The neophytes are feelin' glitchy so we brought 'em back here to make sure it's nothin' too bad," said Rattrap.

Tigatron went over, asking questions and looking carefully at the neophytes. Airazor, knowing she was out of her element, went back to studying her map, though she kept shooting little worried glances at the group.

"All right," said Optimus after a few minutes. "We'll take them down to the repair bay. Maybe we'll be able to determine what's wrong with them."

"Repair bay?" asked Tigatron. "The equipment in the xenobiology lab would be more suited."

"Blast. You're right. Rhinox, Tigatron, bring them." Optimus started out.

Rattrap started to follow. "Hey, I'm comin', too."

"You're more use to me up here," said Optimus.

Which was the polite way of saying, _You've got no training in the biological sciences whatsoever and would be underfoot._ Rattrap plunked down in the nearest chair. "I'll take over your shift so's you can go look after the neophytes, then." _And keep_ me _from hoverin'. Got an image to maintain after all._ Still, he could just happen to keep watch with the security camera in the xenobiology lab.

Dinobot left with the others, talking to Optimus, which Rattrap found somewhat unfair. _Enh, probably just telling Optimus that he didn't do it._

Airazor glanced back at the corridor. "I hope they can fix whatever's wrong."

"Yeah."

Rattrap's mind was otherwise occupied so he never noticed Terrorsaur listening in from the roof, or slip away to sneak back in through the cargo entrance.

 

* * *

 

Dinobot aimlessly prowled the _Axalon's_ corridors. Movement helped him think. He'd talked to Optimus, who had rather distractedly told him Megatron's decision not to return to the Predacon base.

Megatron still felt too unwell to travel. Good. That meant Dinobot probably had a few days to work with. _But how do I reach the Predacon base?_ Taking the hoversled was unlikely. He would never be able to come up with a good excuse why he needed it alone for an afternoon. He couldn't just take it - Rattrap had done something to the device, removed some part so that Megatron couldn't slip away without the Maximals knowing. Walking would take days, even ignoring the mountains and the lava fields. It was completely unfeasible. _Even if I did manage to take the hoversled ... if Megatron_ did _turn off the environmental controls it would be suicide to go inside. And even after all that everyone would know where I had been because of the smell!_

_But I need the Golden Disc._

He would figure out what to do with it once it was in his hands. The important thing was to _have_ it.

The last thing Dinobot wanted to do was confront Megatron but he couldn't see any alternative. Almost unconsciously, Dinobot had gone down to the quarters section of the ship. While he sternly told himself that he was not going to go talk to Megatron, the rest of his body didn't seem to be getting the message.

He paused. Footsteps, only one set, and the muttering announced that Waspinator was annoyed about something.

When Waspinator rounded the corner, Dinobot grabbed her and pulled her into an unoccupied set of quarters. Dinobot twisted the scout's arms behind her back, pushed her into the wall, and pinned her there with his weight. It was safer to deal with one of the warriors than to let Megatron drip poison in his ear. "You _know_ where we are."

She tried to squirm out of his grip. "Waspinator is _here_. Lizard-bot is behind her. Release Waspinator!"

"Don't play stupid."

"Waspinator not playing!"

There was the possibility that Waspinator really did know nothing. That was the problem with trying to predict Megatron's plans - he didn't always tell his minions what they were. Dinobot decided to stick with Waspinator for now. "I've seen you watching the moon. You know where we are."

Waspinator brought her heel down sharply on Dinobot's foot and twisted. Dinobot simply accepted the pain and crushed the Predacon scout into the wall until she gasped for breath and stopped.

He supposed that it really didn't matter how much Waspinator knew about the Golden Disc. Dinobot twisted Waspinator's arm a bit, just enough to elicit a squeak. "Did Megatron shut off the base's environmental controls?"

"Lizard-bot can go eat slag!"

The dodge answer tipped things in favour of 'no'. After all, Megatron didn't know when he left that he wouldn't be returning to his base. Still, it wasn't something he could chance. "Yes or no, insect."

"Nng! Go swim in a smelter!"

The walls weren't thin but Waspinator was shouting. There was a voice in the hall: _"Waspinator!"_

_"Terror-bot!"_ Waspinator shrieked and the strain was finally too much for her throat, sending her into a fit of coughing.

Dinobot hadn't had a chance to lock the door. He twisted, bringing the scout around with him, still holding her arms. Terrorsaur stepped in, a knife already in his hand. They weren't supposed to carry weapons in the _Axalon_ but a knife could be claimed to be a tool.

"Picking on a poor injured Predacon," Terrorsaur rasped, circling, but Dinobot kept Waspinator between them. "Not very _honourable_." And, "I can't leave you alone for a minute, can I, Waspinator?"

"Like is Waspinator's fault flyer-bots sent to different _places_." At 'places', Waspinator drove her foot back into Dinobot's shin while trying to twist out of his grasp. No longer braced by the wall, underestimating Waspinator's strength and his own weakness, they went down in a tangle.

In those few seconds, Dinobot considered his position and found it unfavourable. When Terrorsaur stepped forward and grabbed Waspinator's hand, Dinobot let him yank her away. He stood up once she got clear.

Waspinator's cheek was leaking a clear fluid - the blister had torn sometime during the struggle. She didn't tend to it and Terrorsaur barely glanced at her. Both Predacons had enough sense to realise what the immediate threat was and they weren't about to let Dinobot catch them by surprise. "What was he roughing you up for?" Terrorsaur asked Waspinator without looking away from Dinobot.

"Lizard-bot wants to get back into Predacon base," said Waspinator.

Terrorsaur lifted an eyebrow. "What're you after, Dinobot?"

Dinobot considered telling them. Terrorsaur was notoriously gullible when it came to offers of power. On the other hand he might not be gullible _twice_. Waspinator wasn't very smart but she was more discerning than her partner. But even if they agreed, they were no use to him. Dinobot answered him with silence.

"Fine." With that, Terrorsaur and Waspinator left.

They would tell Megatron. _Let them,_ Dinobot thought. Megatron would have already considered the possibility that Dinobot knew where they were and what the Golden Disc meant.

_They might tell Optimus._

_That_ was an unpleasant thought. Not Optimus knowing, no, but hearing it under those circumstances. Then it would be, _'Why did I hear this from a couple of Predacons? Why did you keep this secret? We need all the information we can get!' and, 'What were_ you _planning to do with the Disc that you couldn't tell us about?'_ And he wouldn't be able to explain that it wasn't for any harmful purpose, that his motivations were entirely personal, because they wouldn't understand and because the admission of his fears would leave him too vulnerable.

_I wanted to be certain before telling you, Optimus. I know we need information but false information is more harmful than none at all._ Except that he _was_ certain and when it came right down to it, Dinobot hated to lie. Omission was allowable but outright lying was dishonourable.

But then they might not go to Optimus at all. Knowing they were on Earth was an advantage and they wouldn't want to give that up. They might not even think that far ahead, the idea of going to the Maximal leader with a problem too alien to them. Terrorsaur and Waspinator hated the Maximals - they wouldn't ask one for help.

_So, my choices - head off the flyers and go to Optimus myself or trust that they won't talk to him._

 

* * *

 

Returning to the _Axalon_ turned out to be for the best. That was where the lavatory was, after all. While not an absolute necessity, it did make life more convenient and hygienic.

"Hey! I was startin' to wonder if we'd hafta send out a search party for you."

Silverbolt glared at Quickstrike, embarrassed at his arrival being announced. He slunk into the xenobiology lab and slipped back into the chair that he'd slid as far away from everyone as possible - if it wasn't on a track, he'd be in the corner. For reasons Optimus couldn't understand, it made Silverbolt uncomfortable when he knew that other people knew he'd been using the lavatory. Quickstrike had the same hang-up to a lesser degree and covered it by making jokes, but it really upset Silverbolt.

Whatever was wrong with the two newest Maximals, it was getting worse and it seemed determined to clean out their digestive systems. Only Quickstrike had thrown up - Silverbolt hadn't eaten that morning, already feeling a bit off. But matter reaching the main tank was only the first part of the digestive process. Once food was dissolved into sludge and passed to the unnervingly tangled-looking tube organs for nutrient extraction the only way it could go was down.

Right now it was being very insistent about going down.

They'd both developed a thirst as well, which bolstered the 'system purge' theory. "If their systems are trying to flush themselves out it might mean they ingested something incompatible with their chemistry," said Rhinox, who hadn't noticed that Silverbolt had returned or even that he'd left in the first place. He was sitting at the computer with Tigatron reading over his shoulder.

"Doubtful. I have eaten nothing that no one else has," said Silverbolt, blushing furiously.

Quickstrike, sitting on one table, looked away from counting Tigatron's stripes long enough to shake his head. "If _that's_ a problem, how come I'm sick and Rattrap ain't?"

"No, I suppose that isn't fair," said Optimus, leaning back on the opposite table, succeeding at keeping a neutral expression. He had already broken up one game of I Dare You To Eat This between Rattrap and Tarantulas. Anyone else and he might have felt a twinge of pleasure that the factions were getting along. Rattrap and Tarantulas had simply found a new way to fight. "Are the rest of us in danger of contracting whatever they have?"

"Maybe," said Rhinox. "Depends on what's causing it. Nobody else has shown these symptoms."

"Perhaps ..." started Tigatron but trailed off uncomfortably.

"We can take it, sugar," Quickstrike assured her.

"Your pods were badly damaged," said the tracker. "You might have been ... constructed wrong."

"It's not that," said Rhinox, swivelling his chair to face the room. "If nothing else, these bodies are easy to compare structurally. There's nothing wrong with how Quickstrike and Silverbolt were built."

"That's a relief, anyway," said Optimus. "Then whatever's happening to them has some kind of outside cause. But we don't know how to begin curing it without knowing what set it off. Maybe all we can do is wait for their systems to cleanse themselves of the contamination."

Quickstrike laughed and reached for his canteen. "Believe me, it's tryin'. 'Least I don't have to taste it any more."

"If it's not something big, perhaps we should be looking for something small. A parasite or bacteria," said Tigatron. "I've yet to see an animal with these symptoms but sick animals tend to hide."

"An animal ..." murmured Silverbolt.

Quickstrike slapped his hand down on the table. "Right! We never ate anything different from you but we did drink different. There was that oasis out in the wasteland, before y'all found us. And that lion that attacked us ... well, I ain't real sure what a lion's supposed to be like but that one looked pretty rough."

"They had bloodstains on their clothing when they arrived," said Optimus. "And water when they tried to wash it off. Would you be able to sample from that, Rhinox?"

"We already disposed of our original garments," said Silverbolt.

"It probably wouldn't have been enough to work from, anyway." Rhinox folded his arms and tapped his fingers on his forearm. "We could get samples if we went back to the oasis, but how are we supposed to find the place?"

Optimus frowned. "Borrow a Predacon. It's their territory. I'll talk to Megatron."

 

* * *

 

Megatron listened to the flyers' reports, then shooed them away so he could think.

Dinobot knew about the Golden Disc and knew what planet he was on. Well, that was to be expected. He could deal with Dinobot.

And the two new Maximals were malfunctioning. Optimus, Rhinox, and Tigatron would likely be devoting all their energies to finding out what was wrong, why it went wrong, and trying to fix it. They would probably borrow Tarantulas to help them. If they didn't, Megatron would have to suggest her himself. The rest of the Maximals would be worried about their comrades.

In short, everyone that Megatron considered a possible threat to his plans was distracted.

He'd hoped to put it off for a few days so he could finish healing - he had no desire to subject his burns to the heat of the Predacon base again - but he hated to turn down such an opportunity.

Megatron checked the repair bay first, chuckled to himself when he found it empty, and then went to the xenobiology lab. He caught Optimus just as he was exiting.

"Ah, Optimus, just the being I wanted to see," Megatron announced, falling into step beside his Maximal counterpart. "I've changed my mind. I think I will return to my base, if only to pick up the Alien Disc."

Optimus stopped and raised an eyebrow. "What brought this about?" Optimus sounded suspicious but that was only natural. Megatron would have thought less of the Maximal if he hadn't been wary.

"Boredom, mostly," he lied. "Continuing my translations of the Disc will give me something to do." _Something to do that doesn't involve physical activity, Megatron added mentally. If I tired merely holding council with my troops, this little field trip is going to exhaust me._

"Dinobot told me you dabble in the biological sciences," said Optimus. "Maybe you should stay here and help us."

"Oh?"

"The neophytes are malfunctioning."

"I build clones. I do not heal sick primates," Megatron informed him. "But I know what equipment might be helpful, yes."

Optimus sighed. "No matter what I say, you're going to find a way around it, aren't you? I'm surprised you're asking my permission."

Megatron smiled thinly. "Don't pretend that you don't know the rat sabotaged the loader sled." Of course Megatron already had duplicates of the parts Rattrap had removed, but let the Maximals think him trapped.

"Right." The Maximal sounded guilty. _How nice that Optimus wishes he could trust us. How nice that it upsets him that his crew knows he can't._ "Who are you expecting to take along?"

"Alas, I will need assistance with any heavy lifting now. In my preference I would take Scorponok, Terrorsaur, and Waspinator." _I would have preferred Inferno. Scorponok isn't healing as well as the others and the flyers aren't the most useful of beings._

"Any one of them is fine. I can lend you Dinobot and Rattrap."

He'd known Optimus would veto an all-Predacon team but it was both worth a try. Megatron didn't have to fake a look of displeasure. "The traitor and the vermin together. You are either trying to assassinate me or goad me into a truce violation."

"They both know your base pretty well already and Dinobot's good for heavy lifting," said Optimus.

"I will tolerate one or the other. Not both at once."

"Hm." Optimus looked back over his shoulder down the hall they'd just left. "If you'll make a side-trip into the wasteland I can send Rhinox."

"Acceptable."

"All right. Dinobot and Rhinox. Happy?"

"Ecstatic," said Megatron with flat sarcasm, gloating inwardly. _You've handed me Dinobot with only the slightest nudge on my part. The day improves._ "Oh yes, and you might want to talk to Tarantulas if you haven't already. She's the one that knows biological sciences, though you might wish to keep an eye on her while she's working."

 


	3. Chapter 3

The fabricator could create parts but not a complete machine. Blackarachnia and Scorponok had to piece together their commlinks by hand. They only made three to start with, an initial design to be tested and built on. The two were holed up in the materials lab, the largest and most obviously used of the three laboratories on the _Axalon_. The xenobiology and xenobotany labs were clean in comparison. The materials lab was an explosion of organised clutter, tools and parts covering every surface and those surfaces were covered in scratches and stains. The Maximals might have found the study of plants and animals interesting but they got far more use out of metal and robotics.

When Scorponok needed fingers back at the Predacon base he would either use the manipulator arms in his lab or borrow Waspinator. He found his new hands with their five fingers were more suited to his current task than his claws would have been. There were burns on the backs of his hands similar to the ones on his face but healing more slowly because Scorponok couldn't help picking at them. At least the injuries didn't get in the way of his work. Blackarachnia, sitting across the table from Scorponok, found her fingers clumsy and confusing. Better at grasping tools but not as good at delicate detail work as her pedipalp-hands had been.

Scorponok shook his head. "How can you find fingers confusing? You used to have eight legs."

"Not on the ends of my arms! They're in the wrong place! How come you're fine with yours?"

He shrugged. "It's not too bad if you just do the work without thinking about the shape of your hands." He tapped the casing of the commlink he was working on. "You think these'll work?"

"I think they'll work," said Blackarachnia. "I don't think they'll work _well_. We had enough problems trying to cut through the energon radiation before." As robots, their commlinks had tapped into their internal power structure, which was sometimes enough to cut through the interference. Now they had to run the devices on batteries. That had been Scorponok's part of it. "Jamming towers."

Scorponok didn't look up from his work. "What about them?"

"We might be able to reprogram them into signal boosters if the energy wave didn't destroy whichever ones the Maximals haven't pulled down," said Blackarachnia. "We'll have to use the _Axalon's_ transmitter to see which towers are still functional."

"At worst we can make more." The towers were mostly pre-fabricated, though they would need machines to lift the pieces now. Scorponok leaned his elbows on the table and tapped his pliers against his palm thoughtfully. "I wonder if we could use the CR chambers to make bigger and more complicated things. CRs already tie in with the fabricators to make new parts but those are often bigger than the fabricator allows for and it pieces bodies together automatically. If we could override the protocols so that instead of repairing, it creates ..."

"Don't let your imagination run away with you," said Blackarachnia. "They might let us play with their toys but I doubt the Maximals are going to let us mess with their ship."

"They might if it'll benefit them."

The door opened and Megatron stepped in. "How goes your work?"

Scorponok answered for both of them. "We're nearly done with the prototypes, we just need to finish putting them together."

Megatron nodded. "Good. Blackarachnia, finish this. Scorponok, you're with me."

 

* * *

 

Optimus never came back to the command centre to finish off his shift. He'd left the xenobiology lab and Rattrap lost track of his leader until he appeared in the stasis hold and stayed there, picking over protoform data. Airazor slipped off before he could ask her to take over - something about foraging because their food supplies were getting low. When Cheetor finally appeared for his shift, Rattrap immediately left to go look in on the neophytes.

Not that Rattrap hadn't kept tabs on what was going on. Every so often, he tapped into the laboratory computer to see what information had been entered. They'd already run scans on everyone to try to estimate what counted as 'normal' now. None of them had been put under nearly as detailed scrutiny as Quickstrike and Silverbolt currently were. In the absence of knowing what was actively harmful, Tigatron and Tarantulas were merely trying to determine what was _different_. This was more Tarantulas' kind of science - take samples of everything that can be sampled, then poke them to see if they dance.

Both biologists were caught up in their own work - Tarantulas on the main computer, standing to work, Tigatron sitting at the end of one of the two tables, picking over a datapad. Where Tarantulas pored over details, Tigatron was more about the big picture, cataloguing physical reactions and weighing them against behaviour she'd observed in the wild. She was also there to keep an eye on Tarantulas but nobody said that.

Tigatron looked up when Rattrap walked in so he smiled at her, made a face at Tarantulas' back, and turned to the neophytes. "How're you two holdin' up?"

"Got two pretty girls fussin' over me," said Quickstrike, lying back on the table Tigatron was sitting at, legs bent to keep them out of her way. He had draped an arm over his eyes but lifted it to look at Rattrap. His face was pale and he was sweating despite the coolness of the room but he still managed a smirk. "Can't complain. 'Cept maybe about how 'Ranty threatened me with a probe."

"I needed a stool sample. You baulked at the idea of bringing one," said Tarantulas without turning around. "Until I told you the alternative, heh heh heh."

"Yeah, and waved it at me." Quickstrike covered his eyes again. "You coulda just said 'please', sugar."

Rattrap grinned. He rather liked Quickstrike. _Reminds me of me, if I was young, fearless, and dumber than rocks. But now I_ know _he's malfunctioning - Tigatron's right there and he's not lookin' at her!_

_Hnh. And Silverbolt's not trying to_ not _look at her,_ thought Rattrap. For his part, he didn't care that Tigatron tended to wear nothing but her boots and hair clips indoors, but the neophytes did. If they weren't giving Tigatron any kind of special attention it meant they were too focused on their insides to notice anything outside.

"This is ... terribly embarrassing," said Silverbolt, fiddling with the cap of his canteen before taking a drink. He had the other chair and was sitting primly at the opposite table. He'd been reading a datapad but put it down when Rattrap came in. He seemed to have lucked out - whatever was wrong, it didn't appear to affect Silverbolt as badly as it did Quickstrike.

"Enh, so you're glitchin'. It's not like you're doin' it on purpose," said Rattrap. "Remind me to tell you two about the time Rhinox got infected with an energon discharge virus ... Or maybe _you_ could tell 'em about it, eight-eyes."

Tarantulas didn't bother looking up from the console. " _I_ was unconscious at the time."

"And how is it _my_ fault that Preds are rock magnets?" asked Rattrap.

"As I recall, the rock didn't happen until _after_ you and Dinobot hunted me down and shot me."

Rattrap was suddenly aware of both neophytes staring at him in horror. Silverbolt found his voice first. "You _shot_ a _woman_?"

"She's a _Predacon_!" Rattrap protested. "She'd infected Rhinox with somethin' that was killin' him! And she wasn't a woman then anyway!"

" _Then_ the rock fell on me. Did you dislodge it on purpose or was that an accident caused by your blundering?" asked Tarantulas, continuing as if there had been no interruption, plainly enjoying herself. "Oh, and _then_ you dragged me for kilometres down that underground passage. And _then_ when I was regaining consciousness, you both punched me in the face. And after more dragging, you used me as a shield and got me shot by Megatron." She sighed dramatically, resting a hand lightly on her chest. "Is it any _wonder_ I don't remember?"

"Would anyone have a problem if _I_ hit Tarantulas?" Tigatron growled.

"Go for it, stripes."

"I ... have not yet considered the morality of that possibility ..."

"Can 'Ranty strip down first?"

"Hmph."

The argument might have continued if nothing interrupted. With a quick, "Excuse me," Silverbolt dashed from the room.

"Think we'd've run out by now," mumbled Quickstrike from under his arm.

Rattrap decided to leave before Silverbolt returned. Rattrap _knew_ he wouldn't be able to keep a straight face if Silverbolt tried to apologise for the fact that his elimination system functioned. A bit over-enthusiastically at the moment but it wasn't like Silverbolt had a choice in the matter.

 

* * *

 

"Hey, boss monkey."

Optimus jumped slightly at the sudden voice. He'd been lost in the shimmer of the blank protoform, sleeping quietly in its pod on the wall. It had taken a loader drone to lift it up there. "Sorry I didn't come back up. I meant to just quickly check in here and got distracted. What brings you down here?"

Rattrap shrugged. "Enh. Neophytes on my mind." He crossed the stasis hold to the pod Tarantulas had tried to turn into an escape ship and ran a finger along it idly.

"Clever, isn't it?" asked Optimus. "It almost worked."

Rattrap flinched, drawing his hand back quickly. "Yeah. Clever. Too bad the spider-bot failed, eh? We might not be lookin' like this if she hadn't."

"All Tarantulas was doing was trying to get off the planet."

"Yeah, but we coulda stuck a bomb in it or somethin' and sent it to blow up that fake moon." Rattrap stepped around the modified pod to stand with Optimus in front of the blank. "Why're you down here?"

"Just thinking." Optimus looked back up at the blank. "There's no traces of the alien energy in it. Megatron didn't believe it and reprogrammed one of the scanners to detect the alien frequency. Nothing. Not in any of the pods, not in the shell fragments Rhinox brought back, not even in us."

"Does that mean we could spark this one and have it come out a robot?"

"The alien energy wave was what knocked it out of orbit so the pod was certainly affected by it. And then we'd need to find our spark surgeon ... I don't know." Optimus felt something break inside him. The last four days had been a daze of survival and strangeness and saying the words made him realise how hopeless it all was. He ran his hands back through his hair and shook his head. "I don't know."

Rattrap took Optimus' arm and helped him sit down by the wall. Optimus drew his knees up to fold his arms across them and hung his head. "What am I _doing_ here? Half the crew is amnesiac or malfunctioning or both - every stasis pod that's opened has had something wrong with it. The ship is full of Predacons - and if I kick them out, they'll be killed by the environment. I can't do that. Fighting them is one thing but I can't pass a death sentence. And I think we need them because a pack of aliens we can't even properly _communicate_ with decided to turn us into a completely different _species_! We can't even transform!"

Rattrap settled cross-legged on the floor, facing him. "You're doin' what you can."

"It's not enough," said Optimus. "I don't know how to fix it."

"Could be worse," said Rattrap. "We're alive, aren't we? We're out here 'cause you were tryin' to do somethin' good. You couldn't have known the Preds were gonna show up and crash us. You've done everything possible to get us home - no thanks to the Preds that we're still here. And who knows? If you hadn't talked to the aliens, they mighta decided to just kill us instead. I ain't found much to recommend these bodies either but I'd rather be organic and complainin' than metal and slagged."

" _Most_ of us are alive," Optimus corrected, glancing up at a table covered in the scrap of the third wasteland pod. "I don't even know their name," he said. "The pod computer is too damaged to pull any information out of it. I want to recycle the pieces properly - it's the least I can do for them - but I don't dare in case the pieces hold some clue as to what the aliens did to us."

The largest piece of the dead Maximal was a hand and a bit of forearm - in metal, not flesh. "I'm pretty sure it's that whatever it is doesn't turn us organic until after the protoform's solidified," said Rattrap. "It's just that this one went boom before the process could start. Or finish. Whichever."

"We need to find a live, closed stasis pod," Optimus agreed. "It's the only way we'll know how the change happens exactly."

"Let's just hope it's one of the crew."

 

* * *

 

"Do we need to be _quite_ this high up?" asked Rhinox, which might have sounded snippy if there wasn't a bit of a waver to his voice.

Megatron added _Fear of heights?_ to his mental file on the Maximal engineer. Most of the journey had been quite near the ground but now they were over the lava fields. "To be honest, I don't know exactly the altitude required to avoid the worst of the lava fumes. I thought it better to err on the side of caution."

It had been a quiet ride to the Predacon base. _Of course, what is there for us to talk about?_ Megatron was chatty by nature but he was concentrating on flying the hoversled. Rhinox had briefly tried to make small talk with Dinobot and Scorponok but neither of them felt like talking.

Megatron looked down at his base. The lava had been quite near the surface of the plain. When the ship crashed, the thin rock crust cracked, creating an effect like a spider web. _Or a target,_ he thought glumly. He frowned, calculating angles. It would be so much easier if they could use the roof hatch but that unfortunately opened into the lava-flooded control room. "Speed will be of the essence," said Megatron, taking his gloves from his pocket and drawing them on. "You may wish to hold on. And hold your breath."

They dropped. Megatron almost wished he could turn to see Rhinox's face. The engineer did gasp in alarm so Megatron contented himself with that. The hoversled dropped to the cargo entrance and Megatron reached over to tap the entry code. He could feel the hot metal through his gloves but they saved him from any further injuries.

It was hot inside, even though the cargo bay was sealed off from the lava and the environmental compensators had been running, but not so hot the air would burn them. Megatron's facial burns immediately began to hurt nearly as much as they did when he first received them and the headache that he'd finally managed to shake off returned full-force. He felt choked by the heat and the stench and had to fight down an unexpected surge of panic. _It's safe here,_ he told himself sternly. _Such as it is. It's not so hot that it will cause harm._ "I suppose I don't have to explain what will happen if you enter one of the sections with lava-flooding," said Megatron, knowing his and Scorponok's injuries were adequate warning. "I trust you all know where they are. Work quickly - we cannot remain in this environment for long, no."

"Where are _you_ going?" asked Rhinox. The engineer was sweating already and ran a hand over his scalp to wipe it off.

"My quarters," Megatron said over his shoulder. "I need to pick up the Alien Disc and my files on it. Scorponok knows what equipment we have well enough."

"One thing," Rhinox started. "Could the floating platforms be adapted to long-range use?"

"Probably. They're all in the command centre, however ... No," said Megatron. "Two are out in the hall by the lab." He might have been able to summon the hoverpads by voice command but it wasn't useful if there happened to be a closed door in the way.

Megatron left the others and quickly made his way to his room. _Now to do what I would have done days ago if I was not distracted by pain,_ he thought, annoyed.

He climbed up onto his chair but didn't stay there for more than a few seconds. It made him feel uncomfortably small. Instead, Megatron pulled the computers down on their runners - installed so he could move his workstations to his bath - so he could use them while standing. _It is thoroughly unfair that I have been cut to half my size while Rattrap remains the same height he always was._

He took off his gloves and activated both of his computers - his personal one and the one that tied in with the ship's systems. After slipping a datadisc into his personal computer and setting it to download what he wanted of his research of the aliens and their artefacts, Megatron turned to his other console and ran a full diagnostic of the ship. He had run some scans right after the alien energy wave hit but hadn't been able to concentrate and read more than the basics. Now he knew his worst fears were realised - the pumps down on the control deck that they used to keep the lava to a reasonable level were damaged. Repairs would be easy ... if he were fireproof.

Megatron deactivated the systems the base wouldn't need for a while - the CR tanks, the defence grid - so that more power could go to the environmental compensators. He would have to set up a remote activation once Blackarachnia was done with the commlinks. No need to have the compensators using energy if no one was there and it would be a deterrent to any Maximals who got ideas about sneaking in. Megatron quickly checked in on the cargo bay - some things had been loaded on the hoversled but no one was there now. "Computer, scan for Di ... No. Computer, scan for organic beings over fifty kilograms." That would keep the computer from pointing out every rat and spider that had slipped aboard.

The computer found all four of them. Crosschecking with the security cameras, he found Rhinox and Scorponok collecting the two hoverpads from the hallway and Dinobot entering his old quarters. Not that there was anything in there. The Predacons hadn't even bothered trashing it.

Megatron walked over to his bath - now the size of a small pool - and tapped his rubber duck on the head, sending it bobbing. It was quite possibly the only personal item any of them had brought from Cybertron. Given the circumstances of their departure it wasn't as if they could pack for the trip. But he had brought the duck, stashed in one of his compartments. It had been a present from Scorponok who had heard somewhere that a rubber duck was the thing to have if one took baths. That didn't confer any special symbolism or meaning to it. It was his and he liked it and that was reason enough.

There were other personal items in the room but most of them weren't his. They'd stolen the ship before it had been completed but after some of the crew had started to move their things into it. Whoever the original captain was, he played various sports and won and collected Great War replica items.

There were two pictures that were Megatron's, both of himself - a painting and a photograph. The photo had been taken on this planet, a still from a cyberbee's footage. The painting was Terrorsaur's work, just something to keep the air warrior busy and out of the way one day, a product of _if you're bored, I'll find something for you to do._ It was simply Megatron from the waist up, in his pre-Earth body, standing in front of a cityscape. It was an accurate enough picture but nothing special. Paint wasn't Terrorsaur's medium anyway.

A rack on another wall held his spare tail-weapons, now as tall as he was. He managed to lift one down but couldn't wield it. Even if it wasn't too heavy, the handle was too big to grip. Megatron spent several minutes trying to fit his hand to it, toying with the connections, stroking the scales. Even those felt alien, memory distorted by too-soft fingers.

He returned to the bath and picked up the duck, careful not to touch the liquid it floated in, cool and inviting as it looked. The chemicals evaporated within seconds and he held up the toy to inspect it. Even the duck was too big now. Making it squeak involved wrapping both arms around it and squeezing.

"You've always been far too fond of that toy."

Megatron tucked the duck under one arm, entirely unashamed to have been caught hugging it. He glanced over at the door. "Feeling homesick yet?"

"I made my choice," said Dinobot. "I stand by it."

"Like you stood by your choice to serve me," said Megatron, setting the duck on his chair before turning around. He wiped a hand across his forehead before the sweat could drip into his eyes. _Well, I finally understand that cloth band Dinobot wears around his forehead._ "Why are you here?"

"I do not trust you. Can you blame me for that?"

"I suppose not." Inwardly, Megatron shrugged. It wasn't as if he was doing anything particularly secret right now. He turned back to his console. "Computer, scan the coordinates of the alien moon. Is it still there? Use the alien frequency."

_"Acknowledged."_ There was a busy silence, then, _"The alien moon is at the expected coordinates."_

"Do you think that destroying the device will return our previous forms?" asked Dinobot.

Megatron shook his head. "No." _But its destruction would mean that the aliens couldn't turn us organic again if we do manage to regain our robotic bodies. But perhaps we shouldn't destroy it, not yet. Maybe we can reprogram it to reverse the change._

_Ha. If we could_ reach _it. Finish up Tarantulas' little stasis pod ship and then what? Suffocate on the way up or die in a vacuum?_

Dinobot was standing by the Discs, watching them hover suspended in their forcefield, but made no move to touch them. Megatron smiled. _At least being with the Maximals hasn't made him careless._ He tapped a code into the console and glanced back. "You can lift it down now, Dinobot. I've deactivated the security system."

The warrior gave him a suspicious look but bravado won out. Dinobot wiped sweat-damp hands on his trousers, then reached up. Megatron chuckled. "No, not the Golden Disc. The alien one."

"I thought both ..."

"What could I _possibly_ use the Golden Disc for at _this_ point in time?" Megatron knew he was being dreadfully obvious but Dinobot wasn't very good at subtle. If he still thought the Golden Disc was good for nothing but a map to energon the hint would go right past him.

Dinobot tensed, lips tightened to a thin line, and Megatron knew that the warrior already realised the Disc's full potential. _And he wants it for himself. A change of command codes doesn't mean a change of spark, does it, Dinobot?_

The warrior pretended that the last five seconds hadn't happened, turned away, and tugged the Alien Disc out of the field. The angle was awkward and Megatron watched as Dinobot's grimly determined expression flickered into surprise. At the last second, Dinobot jumped back so the alien artefact wouldn't land on his feet.

Megatron winced at the crash, unable to damp his hearing though he knew it was coming. Dinobot tried to lift the edge of it to check for scratches but Megatron wasn't worried. The artefact had survived Inferno's rough handling when it was first found; a short drop wouldn't damage it. "It's heavier than it looks," he said mildly. Dinobot growled at him.

Megatron reactivated the security system. "I suppose you've seen the moon," he said casually. _Pretend all you like - I won't let you forget who holds the power._

Dinobot hissed. "Yes."

"Here we are, exactly where I said we'd be. Don't you feel foolish for leaving us now?"

"You got the time wrong."

"Details. This time will suit my purposes just as well, perhaps even better." Megatron picked up his duck and cradled it in one arm, then leaned back against his chair. "Primal hasn't confronted me about it yet ... Oh, my." He tilted his head and smiled slowly. "You haven't told them. They don't know where they are."

"Perhaps I will rectify that oversight when we return to the _Axalon_."

"Perhaps, but the fact that you hesitated at all warms my spark."

"Megatron!" Scorponok had reached the door at a run but stopped when he failed to see any danger, standing uneasily in the doorway. "I heard a crash."

"We merely forgot how heavy the Alien Disc is, so it fell," explained Megatron. "Would you mind helping Dinobot take it down to the hoversled?"

With an angry snarl and much effort, Dinobot lifted the Alien Disc so he could tuck it under his arm. "I will _manage_ ," he growled, then awkwardly stalked out, shouldering Scorponok aside.

The Predacon commander chuckled. "If he wasn't so easily goaded he wouldn't be nearly as much fun." He returned his attention to his personal computer, switched out the datadisc, and set about picking through his files of what he knew of the aliens, choosing what he wanted to share with the Maximals. _After all, it wouldn't do to give_ too _much away, no ..._

"So ..."

Megatron nodded. "He knows, the Maximals do not, and pride keeps him from admitting I was right. Return to supervising Rhinox." Scorponok shot a quick glare back over his shoulder at where Dinobot had been but nodded and left.

The datadisc for the Maximals completed, Megatron hesitated a moment and got out another one for himself to copy the information he had on the Golden Disc. _A final plan for if all else fails._

When he was done, he pocketed his datadiscs, picked up his duck, and locked up his room. The Disc would be as safe there as anywhere.

Megatron took a look through the crew quarters but didn't feel the need to explore. Inferno's room was practically empty - but for a few spare weapons, it could have been any unoccupied room. Tarantulas' was entirely empty but that was because she had stripped everything out and moved it to her lair months ago. Given her sense of humour the empty room was probably booby-trapped. Waspinator's room was full of clutter, collections of rocks and feathers and plants and debris - generally anything that was colourful or shiny. Likewise Terrorsaur, though his room was much tidier and he only seemed to collect plants. These were all dead from the heat since the environmental compensators had never been enough for the delicate organic constructs and he hadn't been back to replenish his supply. Blackarachnia's room was a highly ordered mess, full of parts and equipment and computers snitched from various parts of the ship, with half-completed devices spread out over every work surface. There might be useful things inside but Megatron suspected she also went in for booby traps.

Scorponok's was similar in appearance to Blackarachnia's but Megatron knew it would be safe. He went in, looked around, and picked up one of Scorponok's extra cyberbees in case his technician hadn't had a chance to grab one. The little drones had dozens of uses and Scorponok would be pleased to have one again. It was awkward carrying both cyberbee and duck down to the cargo bay but Megatron managed it.

 

* * *

 

Cheetor knew he wasn't supposed to leave the command centre unguarded but he was only going to be gone for a minute and it was important. Luckily, Optimus hadn't gone far, just sitting near the edge of the chasm in the sunshine, reading a datapad. Cheetor took the lift down. "Optimus! The Standing Stones are giving off an energy reading!"

He had never seen his leader move so fast in his life. Seconds later, Optimus was on the lift, jabbing at the controls. "When did it start?"

"Maybe a minute ago," said Cheetor. "They're pretty low and it's ..."

Optimus ran over to the active workstation to check. "This isn't the alien energy signature."

Cheetor slipped back into his chair. "Yeah, but I figured you'd wanna know."

"I do," said Optimus, patting him on the shoulder. "Any change in an alien site means trouble. After what they've already done to us, I'm not looking forward to seeing their idea of an encore. I'll get the ... No, blast, Megatron has the hoversled. It would take hours to walk to the site."

"What should we do?"

"Keep monitoring it, Cheetor. Tell me if there's any change. It'll probably be faster to wait for Megatron to come back."

 


	4. Chapter 4

Blackarachnia had caught the flyers, and before they could think of an excuse not to do her bidding, she'd slapped prototype commlinks on their wrists and ordered them to test the range.

"Megatron wants us to stick around and keep tabs on the Maximals," Terrorsaur protested.

"They're sitting around watching the new ones malfunction," Blackarachnia told him. "Get lost."

Terrorsaur and Waspinator complained out of spite more than anything else - they had seniority and hated taking orders from Blackarachnia. On the other hand, disobeying her tended to have nasty consequences and they were perfectly happy to have an excuse to go outside. So they took a walk, checking in with Blackarachnia every twenty cycles or whenever they remembered.

The Maximals had cut a path down to the lake below the waterfall for their own reasons, and that was how Terrorsaur and Waspinator got down the cliff. It felt like an insult to beings who four days ago would have simply flown and arrived in minutes. There wasn't much of a beach there, just a slightly wider bit of rocky shoreline. Thick reeds grew near the shore, sometimes trapping bits of driftwood, including an entire tree. Several large boulders had fallen down the cliffs. Some of the boulders had visible scorch marks.

They hadn't wanted to deal with a jungle. Their burns hadn't healed yet, but more than that, they couldn't fly. Terrorsaur flat-out refused to enter a jungle without his wings and Waspinator couldn't fault his logic - if they lacked the strength to fight and the speed to flee, they were going to avoid anything that so much as hinted at danger.

Terrorsaur's brilliant idea had turned out to be fishing. Waspinator's question of 'why?' had been answered with 'because I like to eat them,' and 'because I used to like to do it,' and 'how hard can it be to outsmart a fish?'

There were casualties but the fish were winning.

Waspinator rolled onto her front and watched Terrorsaur. She was staying out of his way, lying on a large, flat-topped boulder about ten metres away, enjoying the sunlight. Her partner was stalking the fish from the shore. His previous method of fishing was to do it in beast-mode, diving and scooping them up in his long beak. Waspinator suggested he try it that way now. Terrorsaur's reply had been rude.

Of course he tried shooting them but the water refracted the beam of his laser. Terrorsaur had then taken Waspinator's gun with its harpoon-like projectiles but the water slowed the missiles down too much to impale. Plus they exploded, which would have left them with fish paste if Terrorsaur had managed to hit one. It made an impressive splash, though.

So Terrorsaur moved on to more basic methods, taking one of his knives and tying it to a long, straight branch with a bit of fabric he'd cut off his jacket to make a spear. The problem there was that withdrawing the spear from the water too often withdrew the blade from the fish before he could reach it. His current method involved the knife pointed upwards at an angle. The fish came to inspect the shiny blade, then Terrorsaur yanked it up quickly, hooking the fish in the body and flipping it up onto the shore.

It was a system efficient enough to have caught three fat gray-brown fish, enough for lunch an hour ago but not much else. Waspinator could have taken or left the flavour and it was a nuisance to separate the flesh from the scales and the bones but Terrorsaur seemed happy with them. It could have been a type of beast-mode holdover or just being pleased that he'd killed something.

Waspinator's commlink beeped. _"Blackarachnia to Waspinator."_

Waspinator fiddled with the controls of the device strapped to her wrist. "Waspinator is here."

After several seconds of static, Blackarachnia replied. _"It's been a megacycle since your last check-in. Where's 'here'? Your signal's weak."_

"Lake below the plateau," said Waspinator, looking up, but she couldn't see the _Axalon_ from that angle.

_"You're still there? I told you I wanted distance measurements!"_

"Terror-bot wanted to play with fish," said Waspinator. Hearing his name, Terrorsaur glanced back, realised who she was talking to, and returned to the fish.

_"Get the screecher moving. I need to know the range."_

Waspinator looked back at her partner, torn. Terrorsaur wasn't going to move just because Blackarachnia said so. Distance made him forget how unpleasant the technician could be. _Waspinator shouldn't just ditch terror-bot. Waspinator is terror-bot's back-up!_

Terrorsaur made a quick movement that failed to catch a fish. _Back-up against fishies. Forget it!_ "Waspinator is taking a walk!" Waspinator announced.

Terrorsaur didn't even look back. "Don't fall in the lake."

 

* * *

 

Rhinox knelt by the scatter of bones that had once been a lion. All the soft parts were gone, already devoured by scavengers and insects. Even some of the bones were missing. _So much for that._

Though it wasn't on any Predacon patrol route, both Megatron and Scorponok knew where the oasis was. The fact that the Predacons never bothered with the place beyond mapping it was probably why the lion had lived as long as it did.

It was less like a pond and more like a big puddle. Rhinox took a few samples of the water, careful not to touch it. If the contaminant was in it, he didn't want to take any chances. It didn't look too bad but there was a scent to it he didn't like.

 

* * *

 

"Hey, 'Bolt. Where'd Quickstrike go?"

Silverbolt looked uncomfortable. Rattrap shook his head. _Right. Lavatory. Where else would he be?_

After a few hours of picking over stasis pod records, Rattrap went back to the xenobiology lab. Tigatron looked up. "Are you going to be here for a while?" she asked. "I could use a break."

Rattrap sat on the other table, leaning back against the wall. "Sure thing, stripes."

"You needn't stay long. I have nothing to do here once I finish up a few tests," chuckled Tarantulas, standing to type on the computer, perfectly aware that she was informally under guard.

Tigatron tidied up the datadiscs she'd been scanning through and left. Several minutes later, Quickstrike returned, grumbling, "Don't see why I even bother comin' back _here_ ..." but the corner of his mouth twitched up when he saw Tarantulas leaning over the computer. "Right."

After a moment, Tarantulas stood up properly and stretched, which Quickstrike also watched with rapt attention. "There," said the Predacon. "The computer should finish running my tests sometime tomorrow."

"That long?" asked Rattrap.

"I'm thorough."

"Great. Another day of this," Quickstrike complained. "How's that go - 'Whatever doesn't kill me makes me wish it did'?" The way he was watching Tarantulas, Rattrap thought Quickstrike might have been feeling better. _Apparently not._

"Ahh, shut it, 'Strike. Shove over, spider." Rattrap could still use the computer for what he wanted it for - Tarantulas' work would just run quietly in the background. He nudged the Predacon aside and popped a datadisc into the reader. "'Strike, 'Bolt, get over here. I know you've been havin' problems acceptin' what we really are ..."

"Do not think we believe you to be lying," Silverbolt said quickly. "Only ..."

Quickstrike made a derisive noise and walked over. "What's this 'we', partner?"

"... We cannot in ourselves accept what you say," Silverbolt finished as if Quickstrike hadn't spoken.

Behind him, Tarantulas laughed. Rattrap rolled his eyes. "I showed you the blank protoform two days ago."

"Yeah and we ain't made of that stuff," said Quickstrike. He glanced back. "You gonna join the party or what, 'Bolt?"

Silverbolt hadn't moved from his chair, sitting with his arms folded tightly across his chest, hands gripping his upper arms. He didn't seem inclined to move. "I can see from here if you step aside."

Rattrap had tried everything he could think of. He'd told them about the Matrix and the Pit back on Cybertron. He got Dinobot to talk history with them - okay, mostly military history, but there wasn't much else anyway. He showed them films about Cybertron. He'd showed them tech specs and security footage of himself and the others and had gotten, "Well, I suppose, if I squinted, _maybe_ I can see how this robot might be analogue to that primate," in response.

Short of opening a stasis pod and having them watch the change, Rattrap had only one trick left to try to jolt the neophytes out of believing they were organic.

"I can't find anything on who you were on Cybertron but I managed to pull the data from the scanners on your pods," said Rattrap, tapping a few keys. "Now, I'll admit things got a little weird but I think that must've been because of all the energon radiation."

The images appeared on the screen to complete silence from the neophytes. Tarantulas chuckled. "Interesting. So their pods each scanned two animals at once and meshed them into one."

"Woulda thought that would turn you into a triplechanger," said Rattrap.

"Maybe but these two seem to be something else entirely. Fuzors."

Quickstrike shook his head. "Now I _know_ you're all just makin' it up."

"It ... does seem a little far-fetched," said Silverbolt. "But, if I somehow was as you say I should be, I _do_ like the design. The wings feel appropriate."

Rattrap sighed, defeated. _Would've been easier if I knew who they used to be. Their memories are so scrambled that they might as well be new creations!_

"'Least _you_ got hands," Quickstrike heckled. "Havin' a snake for an arm might be fun, sure, but it don't make sense!" He jabbed a finger at the image of his beast-mode, something like a scorpion with a cobra for a tail. "Look, a critter like that can't exist. You can't mix species like that and expect it to work. They ain't even got their skeletons in the same place!"

"It doesn't have to make organic physiological sense," said Tarantulas. "It only needs to _appear_ to work on the outside."

"But it _don't_ look like it can work if'n you know anythin' about critters!"

"And I was a big purple spider. So what?"

Rattrap left them to bicker, then went back to check on Silverbolt. He patted the neophyte's shoulder, then reached down to touch the bare skin of his forearm, frowning. "Slag, 'Bolt, you always been this cold?"

Silverbolt pulled away from the contact, an automatic reaction that wasn't really a flinch. "I do not understand. Inside I feel very hot."

_And thank you for telling us this when you first noticed,_ thought Rattrap, annoyed. _These two are worse patients than Dinobot._ "Anything else I should know?"

"Movement is ... difficult," Silverbolt admitted. "I cannot convince my body to obey my directions and it feels to be too much effort to try."

"You'll get over that pretty soon," said Quickstrike positively. "I was feelin' like that earlier."

Rattrap mentally counted to ten. "When, exactly?"

The blond smiled and climbed back up on his table. "Oh, megacycles ago. Right before I blew my tank."

Rattrap automatically stepped away from Silverbolt but not quickly enough to save his boots. The worst part about it, he decided, was the noise. The sight of half-digested matter didn't do anything to him at all, the smell affected his organic body and made his throat twitch involuntarily, but the sound reached him. It was a horrible, wet, organic sound that even his Cybertronian mind could recognise as malfunction. He started to reach over to pat Silverbolt on the back but decided against it. The neophyte didn't seem to like to be touched. _Wait, this looks different from earlier._ What Silverbolt had purged seemed to be mostly water with no solid matter in it. "You haven't eaten today, have you?"

Silverbolt spat and wiped at his mouth. "I have had no desire to. And I had ... hoped to avoid this."

"Eat something anyway. I don't need you falling over 'cause you didn't refuel. At least this'll be easy to clean up." Their old cleaning chemicals could deal with the mess easily. _Might even work on my boots._

Quickstrike rocked back on the table and laughed. Silverbolt glared at him. "I would have thought one who previously had this experience would have more sympathy."

"I'd ask where your dignity was _now_ , partner, but I can see it all over the floor. Whee-oo!"

Tarantulas rolled her eyes. "Delightful. Another sample to analyse."

 

* * *

 

She'd walked along the lakeshore for twenty minutes before giving up - the shore was just too narrow and rocky and Waspinator decided that she'd rather face Blackarachnia's annoyance than risk falling in the lake. Another twenty minutes brought her back to where Terrorsaur was fishing. Another twenty minutes of watching him was driving her crazy.

Waspinator leaned back on her hands and kicked her heels against the boulder. "Is terror-bot done yet?"

"No, terror-bot isn't done yet," Terrorsaur snapped over his shoulder.

Waspinator sighed and flopped onto her back, regretting that she'd gone with Terrorsaur. He was still having fun but Waspinator was bored. _Waspinator doesn't_ have _to follow terror-bot. Waspinator could find something else to do ..._ She considered just leaving but wasn't sure what she could do by herself. _So other option is convincing terror-bot that he wants to do something else._

She had picked up her gun - she had to load it manually now and was considering switching to a laser - and was randomly sighting it on birds when she had the idea. Waspinator sat up and took careful aim - not at Terrorsaur but at the water near him. If he got a soaking he would want to go back to the _Axalon_ for dry clothes. Or he'd just decide to sit in the sunlight until he dried off. Either way it would be funny and he'd give up on fishing.

The water exploded in scales and snapping jaws before Waspinator could pull the trigger.

Terrorsaur's reflexes were enough to save him from the crocodile's initial lunge and he flung himself away from the water's edge with a shriek. Waspinator quickly shifted her aim and fired. The little harpoon buried itself in the greenish brown scales and exploded, taking the top half of the crocodile's head off. The force of the blast would have knocked Terrorsaur to the ground if he wasn't already there.

Waspinator jumped down from her perch and dragged Terrorsaur out of range of the crocodile's death throes. "Terror-bot all right?"

Terrorsaur didn't answer, breath shallow and harsh, entirely focused on watching the reptile thrash. There was blood and flesh splattered on his clothes but none of it was his. Waspinator leaned down and patted Terrorsaur's hair and back and waited for him to calm down. Terrorsaur clung to her, knotting his hands in the hem of her shirt.

Several minutes later, Terrorsaur finally spoke. "That ... that ... Oh, primal forger of implosion!"

The crocodile had gone still. "Critter is dead." She giggled, verging on hysteria. "Terror-bot pokes around all day, catches little fishies. Waspinator catches big lizard! Obviously Waspinator uses better bait."

She expected a smack or at least a glare but Terrorsaur didn't even look at her, still clinging to her shirt. Waspinator stroked his shoulder. "Is all right now. Is just like always - terror-bot distracts and Waspinator shoots!"

Her partner still didn't respond. "Hmph. Waspinator blows off lizard's head, lizard thrashes around too dumb to realise it's dead. Remind terror-bot of anyone?"

The insult finally got through. Terrorsaur released Waspinator's shirt and slapped the back of her thigh. "What's _wrong_ with you? That thing tried to eat me!"

"Terrorsaur should have been paying attention!" Waspinator snapped. _If lizard had attacked when Waspinator wasn't here ..._ She smacked Terrorsaur in the side of the head, just hard enough to let him know she'd been scared, then walked over and prodded at the ruin of the reptile's head with the toe of her boot. "Think lizard is edible?"

"It thought _I_ was, anyway," Terrorsaur complained, getting back to his feet. "Big, dumb, and violent. Megatron would've loved it. We'll never get this thing back up to the plateau. Maybe Megatron is back with the loader sled."

"Waspinator hasn't seen it." Of course the possibility existed that she just didn't notice or Megatron took the long way around.

"Worth a shot." Terrorsaur pressed the activation stud on his commlink. "Terrorsaur to Blackarachnia."

Blackarachnia's static-clouded voice came through a few seconds later. _"Are you planning to bring my prototypes back sometime?"_

"That's why I'm calling," said Terrorsaur. "We need a ride."

_"Walk."_

"We caught dinner - ow!" Terrorsaur yelped when Waspinator pinched him. " _Waspinator_ killed one of those big water lizards. It's too large to carry."

_"Megatron's not back with the hoversled yet."_ There was an annoyed sigh. _"I'll see if the Maximals will let me borrow a loader drone."_

 

* * *

 

"Blast it, Inferno, where are you?" Megatron grumbled when he found his quarters empty. Not a big problem, just an inconvenience - nothing could get the stench of lava out of fabric and he'd have to dispose of his clothing himself. Still, his warrior should have returned by now. _With two guns, she_ must _be having fun somewhere._

"She's not back yet."

Megatron fell into his chair, too tired to care if it made him look weak. Scorponok had retreated to his room to recuperate. Dinobot and Rhinox weren't nearly as badly off, since it was only their first exposure to the atmosphere of the Predacon base and then only in the safe areas. "Poor hunting today, I suppose." He'd used one of the hoverpads to carry the Alien Disc, the cyberbee, and his duck to his quarters. The room was small enough that the hoverpad floated in the doorway, propping it open and allowing passing Maximals to look in.

"Not for everyone," said Optimus. "Your flyers caught a crocodile. I sent Tigatron and Blackarachnia down with a loader drone to help them bring it up."

"Oh? Does that mean the commlinks are working?"

"To over a kilometre at least."

For lack of anywhere else to put it, Megatron had propped the Disc up on the berth. Optimus walked right in without asking - in someone else, Megatron might have thought he was just throwing his weight around or being rude. This was Optimus and it was more likely he was just too distracted by the Disc to remember social niceties.

"... Megatron, what is this?"

_Or maybe he wasn't distracted by the Disc._ "A bath toy."

Optimus shook his head. "I'm never going to understand you, am I?" To his credit, he didn't try to grab the duck. The Maximal had some manners, at least. Then, "So this is the Alien Disc?"

"Yes," said Megatron, then glanced at the Maximal in surprise. _You honestly didn't know. Which means you've never actually seen the Golden Disc. You don't have the faintest idea what it is or what power it holds. Oh, delightful. I just hope Dinobot decides to remain quiet._

Optimus missed the reaction entirely, staring at the Disc. "... Two of the symbols just changed."

"They do that," said Megatron. "It's one of the reasons I've been finding translation difficult." He drew a datadisc out of his pocket and handed it to his counterpart. "Here. My researches on the aliens thus far. Perhaps you'll see something in it that I missed." The information on the datadisc would keep the Maximal busy for days. _And who knows? Perhaps he_ will _find something I overlooked._

"Thanks."

"Don't bother. I aid you only for selfish purposes."

He'd said it straight and meant every word of it but Optimus took it for sarcasm and smiled slightly. "Thanks, anyway. Just as a head's up, I'm taking the hoversled. There were some energy readings at the Standing Stones."

Megatron frowned. "I thought that site was dead."

"So did I," said Optimus. "I don't plan on getting too close."

Optimus left. Megatron briefly considered going with him but decided against it. If there was danger, better to send a Maximal into it.

He'd worry about it when he had more data. For now, Megatron slumped deeper into his chair and glared at his room. _Far too small. This will not do. Perhaps I can knock out a wall. But first I'm going to take a shower. Cooling down and getting rid of this stench should weaken this headache._

 

* * *

 

Of the three alien sites they'd encountered, Airazor had been attacked by two and Optimus had been attacked by one and captured, tortured, and scanned by two ... and one of the latter was the one they were approaching.

If Airazor was apprehensive about going to an alien site again, she didn't show it, standing right up beside him on the hoversled, leaning into the wind. Optimus worried for both of them. The Standing Stones were a dead site, or at least he'd been certain they were until the _Axalon_ picked up new energy readings from them.

When they arrived, Optimus realised he needn't have worried. The Standing Stones were in disarray, scorched and cracked. He set the hoversled down about thirty metres away just to be careful and they approached on foot.

Airazor looked at the nearest stone. It was lying on its side, cracked into three pieces. A few were like that, though most of the stones were only scorched. "Why would the aliens ..." She trailed off, meeting Optimus' gaze, and realised they were thinking the same thing. "Not the aliens. Inferno."

Optimus nodded. "The heat-beam weapon she's got now couldn't do nearly this much damage alone. That's why she wanted one of Tigatron's guns - so she could heat the stones, then freeze them so they'd crack. This is what she planned to do all along."

"But _why_?" demanded Airazor, then, "Right. Why does Inferno do anything? Why did _Megatron_ want the place destroyed? The site was deactivated."

"It's the closest one to the _Axalon_ ," said Optimus. "Inferno was acting alone, assuming I can trust Megatron's reactions. He was surprised Inferno wasn't back yet. I think he believed she really was just out hunting."

"Which brings us back to trying to guess Inferno's motives." They walked over to the remains of the central table-like structure. It was little more than rubble, stones cracked by extreme temperatures again and again until they were small enough to move. Airazor circled it carefully. "She was digging around here. All the rocks have been tossed out of the centre. If Inferno just felt like destroying something, why go through all this trouble? I'd have thought she'd just go set some wildlife on fire."

Optimus picked his way over the ruins of the table to see what Inferno had been doing. "It might just be that she's angry at the aliens and this was venting."

There was a hole in the centre, not dug by Predacon hands, forty centimetres in depth and diameter. It was lined with strangely blackened metal. At first he thought it was scorched but when he looked closer it was more like how a plant goes black when it dies. There were a few thin supports and trailing wires but the hole was otherwise empty.

"Optimus?"

"She took something from here."

 

* * *

 

The cleaning chemicals they'd used as robots were designed to dissolve the organic materials that they picked up from outdoors. They couldn't use them on themselves now - the chemicals burned their skin. Tigatron refused to let them just dump the stuff outside since it would destroy whatever organic material it touched.

It turned out to be for the best that they'd kept it. The chemicals were great for dealing with body wastes. They'd dissolve whatever they were poured on and dissipate as if they had never been. It gave off a lot of heat but that's what environmental controls were for. Cheetor thought it was pretty neat.

There was a groan from the next stall. Rattrap hadn't put those in - he'd installed the plumbing and called it a day. Silverbolt had insisted on partitions, which ended with Rattrap shoving a welding kit into his hands, pointing out where they kept extra metal sheeting, and telling him to have at it. The welds were a bit sloppy but all in all Silverbolt had done a pretty good job. _Well, of course. He's Cybertronian. Welding is basic._

Cheetor knocked on the partition. "You okay? That sounded like it hurt."

"Would you _please_ not talk to me in here?"

Silverbolt. Cheetor rolled his eyes, finished up, washed his hands, and waited. After a few minutes, Silverbolt emerged, tense and embarrassed and trying to pretend he was alone. His appearance surprised Cheetor, who hadn't seen him since the day before - the neophyte looked drawn and worn-out and pale. "You're not in there any more," said Cheetor. "You okay?"

"I do not wish to discuss it," said Silverbolt stiffly, washing his hands.

"Why do you find it embarrassing?"

"It is not a polite topic of conversation."

"Why not?" Cheetor persisted. "I mean, you're not embarrassed by eating, and this is just kind of the other end of that."

Silverbolt made an odd kind of strangled noise and closed his eyes, leaning against the sink. "I do not need to hear comparisons of bodily functions, Cheetor, thank you."

_Sheesh. Rhinox wasn't kidding when he said Silverbolt was a bad patient. He can't even_ think _about his body without getting embarrassed, let alone tell anyone what's wrong with it._ Cheetor let Silverbolt retreat, then quickly checked the stall he'd been in. The chemicals took several minutes to do their work.

Cheetor caught up with Silverbolt in the corridor and fell into step beside him. "So ... have you told Rhinox about the blood or do you need me to do it?"

 

* * *

 

Dinobot stood in the shadow of the _Axalon_ and looked up at the sky. The moon wasn't out yet and the alien device would be invisible anyway. _It is impossible that the false moon remained undetected while the Great War was on Earth. Between now and then it_ must _have been destroyed ..._

_... Or ... not?_

He shut his eyes and clenched his fists, as if to hold his thoughts before they could slip away. _Is this_ not _how it was meant to be? Did we change the future by crashing here in the past? But then what agency removed the false moon before our era? Have we simply not done so_ yet _? Is it nothing to do with us and the aliens will take it away at some later point?_

_Is this as it always was?_

_Everything I've done, everything I've fought for, the choices I've made ..._

_... Were they ever_ my _choices?_

Movement in the distance caught his attention and Dinobot automatically reached for his sword. He released it, undrawn, when he recognised the figure. _A threat, but not one I may fight right now._

Inferno - dirty and dishevelled, hands and arms scraped up, trying to march but too exhausted. Her heat-beam weapon was strapped to her back while one hand gripped one of Tigatron's guns and the other held ... a rock? Dinobot frowned. _No, not a rock. Something metal._

When she was about ten metres away, the lift hissed and Optimus jumped down before it finished descending. "Stop right there, Inferno."

The Predacon stopped but disengaged the safety on the cold-blaster. "I must report to Megatron."

There was no fight - Inferno was barely keeping on her feet as it was. Dinobot slapped the cold-blaster out of her hand and knocked her to her knees before she could even react. Inferno let the Maximals disarm her but refused to relinquish the other object. She simply hunkered down and curled around it so that Dinobot couldn't pry it out of her grasp. Optimus didn't even try.

Optimus said, "Megatron will be here soon."

Inferno glared up at him. "Very well."

Dinobot collected up the guns. "What is that she has?" All he could see was that it was dark, spherical, and it worried Optimus.

"An alien device. She found it under the Standing Stones."

Only when Megatron arrived did Inferno stagger to her feet and open her hands, offering up the device to her leader. "Forgive me for being unable to enact more than a token vengeance, Megatron."

The sphere was fifteen centimetres in diameter, a dark, tarnished blue with a gold band looping around it and blue glass insets. While metal, it had a strangely organic look to it. Megatron looked at it closely without taking it from his warrior's hands. "There seems to be writing on it but none of the symbols from the Disc."

"I'm not letting you bring that thing into the _Axalon_ until I'm _sure_ it's deactivated," said Optimus flatly.

Megatron made a derisive noise. "You think I would? You may have been the one the probe took but you are not the only one who was attacked by the Standing Stones."

 

_To be continued ..._

 


End file.
